DISINFO: Ukraine launched a military operation against DPR and LPR
SUMMARY
In April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR which declared independence after the coup d'etat in Kyiv. According to the latest UN data, about 13 thousand people became victims of the conflict.
RESPONSE
This is a mix of the several recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the war in eastern Ukraine, presenting the conflict as a “civil war”, a war of Ukraine against its own people in Donbas. The article also claims that the creation of DPR and LPR came as a response to the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv, often painted as a coup d'état.
There was no coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014; this is a longstanding pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine's Euromaidan. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was a reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former president Viktor Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013.
The war in Ukraine is not a civil conflict, where Ukraine is attacking Donbas, but a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014.
The involvement of Russian personnel and equipment in the creation of the DPR and LPR has been well documented already for years. The destabilisation of Eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea has been condemned by the Council of the European Union and led to restrictive measures since 2014.