DISINFO: Russia was forced to launch military operation in Ukraine
SUMMARY
Russia was forced to launch its special military operation in Ukraine because it had already been attacked by way of creeping NATO expansion and Ukraine's aspirations to join the military alliance, as well as the growing influence of Nazism on the Ukrainian state and the latter's treatment of the Russian-speaking population. It was the only correct decision a sovereign, independent country like Russia could have taken.
RESPONSE
The claim is part of an ongoing pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign concerning Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia's aggression against Ukraine was unprovoked and unjustified.
The Russian invasion is aimed at destroying Ukraine as a state and annihilating the Ukrainians as a nation. These plans were openly laid out in an article titled “What Russia should do with Ukraine” in April 2022. See also our review here.
Along with calls to de-Nazify and demilitarise Ukraine, the article advocates its de-Ukrainisation, meaning the eradication of Ukrainian culture and everything related to it, plans to divide Ukraine into several entities subordinate to Russia, but without the word “Ukraine” in their names. Thus, Russia is not protecting itself, or anyone else, in its war. Instead, some Russian politicians and experts are threatening to attack Western nations after Ukraine.
The claim is only the latest in a litany of sham pretexts which Moscow had been using since even before it launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine. Read similar disinformation cases claiming that the US needs a big war in Europe to prevent own economic collapse, that the EU rejected all Russian compromises and forced Russia to launch the special operation in Ukraine, and that the US is implementing deadly anti-Russian policy; the Western countries are guilty of the situation in Ukraine.