DISINFO: Kyiv regime is an American puppet doomed to stay under the US control
SUMMARY
Kyiv remains an American puppet, and all attempts to gain independence are doomed to failure. The Americans inflated Zelenskyy as a world-class leader [...]. The President of Ukraine imagined that he could determine American policy. Biden called him in and reminded him: it is up only to the White House to decide how events develop. Ukraine has only an advisory vote. At the same time, Zelenskyy is kept on a long leash.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine’s alleged lack of sovereignty, aiming to undermine its statehood.
Since 2014 pro-Kremlin media outlets have often claimed that Ukraine either did not exist as an independent state or was going to disintegrate very soon.
In reality, present-day Ukraine has been on the world map since 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated.
Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state with a democratically-elected president and parliament. Ukraine has a functioning government and economy, it is a member of many international organisations (e.g. United Nations, Council of Europe), and a party to international agreements. Ukraine has bilateral diplomatic relations with the majority of countries.
Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity have been violated by continuous acts of aggression by Russian armed forces since 2014 culminating in a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022.
President Zelenskyy's visit to the US, in December 2022 was his first foreign visit since the full-scale Russian invasion is a a significant sign of transatlantic support for Ukraine. The US and other NATO member states are sending weapons to Ukraine, to support its right of self-defense, that is enshrined in the UN Charter.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukraine lost its independence and is under external control, that the West has made Ukraine its colony and is using Ukrainians as cannon fodder, that the West is destroying Ukrainian statehood and its military forces, that Western lobby demanded Zelenskyy to raise the stakes of the crisis, or that Zelenskyy's visit to Washington shows that Ukraine will be a neo-colony of the US.