DISINFO: The EU is obsessed with anti-Russian sanctions
SUMMARY
The EU is obsessed with imposing sanctions on Russia and this is the reason for the destruction in EU-Russian relations. The relations started to deteriorate when European countries and the US supported the government in Ukraine.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative attempting to put responsibility for the deterioration in relations between Russia and the West exclusively on the latter, ignoring the reasons behind the sanctions.
The West and specifically the EU has imposed restrictive measures, including sectoral sanctions, as a result of the of the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's destabilising actions in eastern Ukraine.
The EU’s approach to Russia is guided by five principles agreed in 2016 and reaffirmed, most recently, by EU Foreign Ministers in October 2020. Read more about the EU-Russia relations here.
Additionally, there was no coup in Ukraine. The demonstrations which began in Kyiv in November 2013 – called "Maidan", or "Euromaidan" – were not provoked from outside but were a result of the Ukrainian people's frustration with former President Yanukovych's last minute U-turn when, after seven years of negotiation, he refused to sign the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement and halted progress towards Ukraine's closer relationship with the EU as a result of Russian pressure. The protesters' demands included constitutional reform, a stronger role for parliament, formation of a government of national unity, an end to corruption, early presidential elections and an end to violence.
Read similar claims in our database such as Crimea’s reunification with Russia was legal, or that historically Crimea was a Russian land, and that the Western-backed coup in Ukraine has torn the country asunder; or that Crimea, Donbas separated from Ukraine after a Nazi coup in Kyiv.