DISINFO: Accusations against Russia intend to divert attention from Ukraine’s attempts to disrupt peaceful settlement of Donbas conflict
SUMMARY
Russia does not plan to attack a neighbouring state. Accusations against Moscow are intended to divert attention from the attempts of the Ukrainian authorities to disrupt the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbas and to violate the Minsk agreements.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative about the war in Ukraine, portraying Ukraine as the sole obstacle for peace in the Donbas, violating the Minsk agreements, and presenting the conflict in Donbas as an internal one. This claim is a part of a wider disinformation campaign, as our article explains, aiming to deflect attention away from Russia’s military build-up on its border with Ukraine since late October 2021. As such, it looks more like disinformation in search of a casus belli.
The war in Ukraine is a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014. There is irrefutable evidence of direct Russian military involvement in Eastern Ukraine, in the Donbas. Russia is supporting its proxies with weapons, its active-duty soldiers serve there and its top military commanders visit the war zone to coordinate joint efforts with the separatists. Despite all this Russia officially denies its military presence in Donbas.
Contrary to the Kremlin claims, the main impediment to a peace settlement in Donbas is, in fact, Russia’s and its proxies’ deliberate unwillingness to implement the Minsk agreements. These documents provide, among other things, for a comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of foreign troops from Ukraine. Kyiv announced a truce in July 2020, but the Moscow-backed separatists have been violating it almost every day; see the reports of the OSCE Monitoring Mission here.
In the beginning of 2022, on 4-6 January, the EU High Representative Josep Borrell visited Ukraine, including Kyiv and the Stanytsya Luhanska check point - see his statement / blog here on the consequences of the war. The High Representative said, inter alia,
“I could eyewitness the consequences of the war in the Donbass region and hear and see how the conflict has dramatically affected the lives of thousands of people, with many destinies destroyed. ...
Russia is a party to this conflict, and not a mediator as it often claims. Our main interest, concern and purpose is to get Russia to de-escalate tensions.”
Read similar disinformation claims about the current Russia-Ukraine conflict here.