DISINFO: The Istanbul talks are Russia’s peace gesture towards Ukraine as a failed state
SUMMARY
Russia has always welcomed peace talks. It formulated clear conditions such as the withdrawal of Ukrainians troops from Russia’s territory, no accession to NATO, no fascism/Nazism in Ukraine, and no oppression of national minorities in Ukraine. The Istanbul talks are a chance that Russia is giving to Ukraine as a failed state to prove that it is not a terrorist state. Ukraine, however, is demonstrating that it is a terrorist state. International norms prohibit negotiations with terrorists.
RESPONSE
These are recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives discrediting Ukraine’s statehood, portraying Ukraine as Nazi/fascist, and presenting Russia as inclined to peace. Read our analysis The Kremlin’s poisoned chalice of peace, which explains how Moscow has been making overtures to peace while falsely blaming Ukraine and Europe for Russia’s aggression.
Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state with a democratically elected president and parliament which is bravely resisting Russia’s invasion. The country's sovereignty has been violated only as a result of continuous acts of aggression by the Russian armed forces since 2014, culminating with a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine starting on 24 February 2022. Labelling Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a very frequently used pro-Kremlin disinformation technique, and has been used by Russia to try to justify the invasion of Ukraine by portraying it as a “denazification operation”. Read a more detailed debunk here, as well as our analysis titled "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
Russia’s listed conditions amount to demands for Ukraine to surrender its sovereignty, accept territorial losses, and submit to Kremlin control. As our analysis explains, these demands also reinforce a narrative that seeks to portray Russia as the victim rather than the aggressor. By invoking alleged “Nazism” in Ukraine or fabricating claims of persecution against national minorities, the Kremlin attempts to obscure its core responsibility: launching an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of a sovereign neighbouring country.
Plans to dismantle Ukraine as a state and annihilate Ukrainians as a nation were openly outlined in an April 2022 article published by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, titled “What Russia should do with Ukraine”. See also our review here.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that In April 2022 Russians withdrew from Kyiv to demonstrate their readiness for peace, that West did not want peace, it prodded Ukraine into war, that Zelenskyy and the EU want a permanent war in Ukraine, and that Zelenskyy’s peace plan is a war formula.