DISINFO: Russia is not party to Donbas conflict
SUMMARY
Russia is not a party to the conflict in Donbas.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin media, claiming that what has been going on in Donbas for more than 7 years is an internal conflict or a civil war and that Moscow is just a mediator. In reality, there is ample well-documented evidence that Moscow has been waging war against Kyiv since 2014, when Russia invaded the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said in a report in 2016:
“This international armed conflict began at the latest on 26 February when the Russian Federation deployed members of its armed forces to gain control over parts of the Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian Government...The law of international armed conflict would continue to apply after 18 March 2014 to the extent that the situation within the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol factually amounts to an on-going state of occupation.”
Russia later fomented separatist sentiment in Donbas and some other areas, one of its primary goals being to secure land passage to occupied Crimea, which is separated from Russia by sea. Top Russian officials were planning revolts in various Ukrainian cities, of which there is sufficient proof. Russians also helped stage illegal independence referendums in Donetsk and Luhansk. Then Russia sent troops to the Ukrainian territory, armed separatists and has been providing them with propaganda coverage since then. The Russians were also planning separatist revolts in Odesa and Kharkiv, but Ukraine managed to keep these regions.
Asked by a Ukrainian reporter in 2020 whether Russia was a party to the contract, the former Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group, Ambassador Martin Sajdik, said :
"Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE are members of the Trilateral Contact Group. This group was set up to find a solution to the Donbas conflict through the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Obviously, the OSCE is not a party to the conflict, it’s only a mediator. Then it’s easy to answer a question about the parties to the conflict."
Kyiv and Moscow are the only warring sides in both Crimea and Donbas. The pro-Kremlin separatists are just a tool in Russia’s hands, which it is using to misinform the international community that what is going on in Eastern Ukraine is an internal conflict.
See more disinformation narratives, claiming that Russia is not an aggressor in Donbas.