DISINFO: Poland, Hungary and Romania will annex Ukrainian territories after its military defeat
SUMMARY
Hungary, Poland and Romania may take advantage of Kyiv’s military defeat to annex some Ukrainian territories that they consider to be their own. Today, we may be witnessing the slow end of Ukraine. Its neighbouring countries, Poland, Hungary and Romania, may want to receive the territories that once belonged to them, like Zakarpattia for Hungary, Galicia for Poland and so on.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative challenging Ukraine’s statehood, questioning its sovereignty, and presenting EU countries and the US as states with malicious intentions towards Ukraine. Its aim is also to deflect attention away from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and drive wedges between Ukraine and Poland, Romania and Hungary by sowing false claims of territorial ambitions.
This disinformation claim has adopted several different and sometimes contradictory forms, including allegations that Poland either wants to create a puppet proxy-state in Western Ukraine or annex these territories or that it is President Zelenskyy who wants to cede this land due to his “Polish origin”.
Romania and Hungary have no territorial claims towards Ukraine. Romania has a strategic partnership with Ukraine, concluded in October 2023, when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Bucharest. ”Supporting Ukraine is a strategic interest of Romania. Strengthening Ukraine's security means strengthening Romania's security. We thus support the fight for the fundamental values of the world in which we live”, said Romanian President on October 10, 2023, at joint press conference held with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Bucharest.
Russia is the only country challenging the existence of Ukrainian statehood and violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity in a display of imperial, revisionist aggression.
Regarding the claim that Ukraine is artificial, please refer to Myth 3: Ukraine does not exist as a state in our article Thirteen myths about Russia’s war against Ukraine exposed.
See also the cases US plans to partition Ukraine between a number of states in pursuit of US interests, that the Kyiv authorities are preparing the territory of Ukraine for Western occupation, that Ukraine will disintegrate and fall prey to territorial claims of EU member states, that Poland is absorbing Ukrainian territory by Zelenskyy's consent, and that Ukraine is under hybrid occupations of the West.