DISINFO: Seven year ago Kyiv's junta gave an order to kill civilians in Donbas
SUMMARY
Today is the very day when the Kyiv junta, the Kyiv regime, gave the order to shoot at the civilians of Donbas, imposing their regime.
The war in Donbas was unleashed by people who seized power in Kyiv as a result of a coup d'etat and are ready to do anything to keep it.
RESPONSE
This case contains multiple recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the war in Ukraine and the Euromaidan protests.
The war in eastern Ukraine is not a civil conflict, but a well-documented act of aggression by the Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014.
Ukraine did not start the war. The public protests organised by Russia started in Donbas in March. On 12 April 2014, pro-Russian separatists led by Igor Girkin (Strelkov), a retired colonel of Russia's external military intelligence agency, seized governmental buildings in Slovyansk, a city in the north-western part of Donetsk oblast. Later, governmental buildings were seized in nearby cities.
In response to terrorist acts, on 14 April Ukrainian authorities declared an anti-terrorist operation in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Ukraine is not governed by a junta. Democratic, competitive, and generally well-organised presidential and parliamentary elections were held in 2014 and then in 2019. These elections were recognised by all international observers, including the EU, OSCE, and the Council of Europe.
See similar recent disinformation cases in our database: junta came to power in Ukraine in 2014 and triggered a purely internal conflict; Anglo-Saxons are pushing Kyiv to full-scale hostilities in Donbas; Ukraine intends to commit genocide in the Donbas; Ukraine launched a military operation against LPR and DPR; the US is preparing Ukraine for war in Donbas, sending to it weapons every day.