DISINFO: The Kyiv regime has been carrying out a terrorist operation in the Kursk region
SUMMARY
On August 6, 2024, the army of the Kyiv regime broke through into the [Kursk] region. This is perhaps the first time in military history that an enemy officially admitted that its regular army was carrying out a terrorist operation - kidnapping hostages, torturing and killing civilians.
The enemy does not hide that there is no military sense in the attack: there is only blind irrational confidence that part of the territory will be a valuable bargaining chip at negotiations (where Ukraine has no place).
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narratives from pro-Kremlin outlets denying Ukraine's legitimate right of self-defence, portraying Ukraine as a terrorist state, and accusing it of atrocities in an attempt to deflect Russia’s responsibility for war crimes committed by its troops. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a Ukrainian advance into Russia's adjacent Kursk region.
Ukrainian authorities have denounced previous Russian accusations of Ukrainian atrocities in the Kursk region as false.
The advance into the Kursk Region is part of Kyiv’s military strategy aimed at liberating all Ukrainian territories from Russian occupiers and restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders of 1991. Russia is using military facilities in the Kursk Region and other adjacent regions for deadly attacks on Ukrainian territory, which have caused thousands of civilian victims. Kyiv is acting in self-defence, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. These targets in Russia are legitimate targets for Ukrainian military operations.
Read more about the Kursk Oblast incursion here.
Terrorism refers to acts of violence targeting civilians with the intent to spread fear and achieve political aims, while Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory are part of defensive actions, aiming to disrupt military infrastructure and logistics. Ukraine's partners also view these attacks as self-defence against Russian aggression and occupation, and thus part of a conventional wartime strategy in full compliance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Atrocities against civilians in Kursk confirm the Kyiv regime's terrorist core, that Ukrainian atrocities supplemented by the kidnapping of residents in Kursk region, that Ukraine builds concentration camps in Kursk, that Ukrainians behave like Nazis in Kursk Region, that Attacks on Russia demonstrate the terrorist nature of Zelenskyy's regime, that Ukraine’s advance into Russia’s Kursk Region is barbaric and terrorist, that The attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kursk is a terrorist act, or that French and Ukrainian mercenaries commit atrocities in the Kursk region.