DISINFO: Russia was forced to recognize DNR and LNR
SUMMARY
Russia did not recognise [the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics] for eight years. We tried to negotiate. We were forced to recognise their independence and then begin to provide them with support, including military support, in order to put an end to the war unleashed by our opponents in the West and those on whom they relied and are now relying in Ukraine – extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative justifying Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The disinformation narrative about the West being responsible for the war in Ukraine and Russia defending itself is one of the major myths about Russia's invasion of Ukraine in pro-Kremlin sources. This false claim is a classic disinformation tactic to portray Russia as the victim of its own war of choice. Pro-Russian outlets tried to pretend that someone else was doing the invading and routinely assert that Ukraine is nothing more than a Western weapon against Russia.
Russia's aggression against Ukraine was unprovoked and unjustified. Russia is the only country responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. It has been coming up with different manipulative explanations and false pretexts for its aggression since the beginning of its hostilities. It cited denazifying and demilitarising Ukraine as well as ensuring its neutral status as among the main reasons for the full-scale invasion at the beginning. Protecting the residents of the self-proclaimed separatist entities in Eastern Ukraine from alleged genocide and imposing the use of the Russian language in Ukraine were also cited.
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.
It was Putin’s personal decision to invade Ukraine and start the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII.
Since 2014, Russia has waged large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine. It is responsible for the outbreak of the conflict in 2014, after having illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula and engineered the creation of rebel militias in Donetsk, Luhansk and other places, with its army actively participating in military clashes.
According to international law, Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson remain legally part of Ukraine. The illegitimate annexation of these regions took place amid a full invasion by a foreign power and under military occupation, and after sham referenda that didn’t meet international standards to be considered legitimate. The "referenda" were held illegally, under duress, and on territories which Russia does not even fully control.
The results of these sham polls were universally rejected by leading international and human rights organisations, including the United Nations, the OSCE, NATO, as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Russia's inclusion of these territories in its constitution does not make them legally part of Russia. This unilateral action contradicts international law and UN resolutions.
Labelling Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a 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”. Russia spent years preparing the information battleground before its full-scale invasion, with “Nazi Ukraine” being one of its most prominent disinformation features.
The myth of “Nazi Ukraine” has been widely used by Putin and pro-Kremlin outlets since Russia attacked Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. It is also being used to justify Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.
Learn more about the reasons behind the Kremlin's obsession with framing Ukraine as a Nazi state in the EUvsDisinfo analysis titled "Nazi east, Nazi west, Nazi over the cuckoo's nest" and "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself from an Anglo-Saxon provocation, that Russia was literally forced to launch a special operation in Ukraine, that Donbas would be scorched earth without Russia's intervention, that Ukraine was about to invade DPR and kill civilians in Donetsk in 2022, that Putin 2022 intervention necessary because Ukrainians were massacring Russians in Donbas, that Nazi Kyiv regime never represented the people of Crimea, Donbas and Novorossiya, that Neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv was formed as a result of the coup in 2014, or that Russia was forced to attack Ukraine in February 2022.