DISINFO: The war in Ukraine is a part of a centuries-long Western anti-Russian strategy
SUMMARY
The Western-provoked Ukrainian conflict demonstrates that Western European ruling elites continue following Europe’s strategy of the XIXth-XXth centuries which aimed at crashing and dismembering Russia. The USSR’s victory in WWII obstructed the West's global expansion. Rewriting history and removing war monuments serve the purpose of erasing it from the public discourse.
RESPONSE
This is a big conspiracy theory about the West's centuries-long grandiose anti-Russian plan which serves to justify the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine by falsely presenting it as a part of the strategy of Western countries. For background, read our analysis: The “Russophobia” Myth: Appealing to the Lowest Feelings.
Russia has systematically sought to revise history to instil a deceptive misperception that only Russia fought against Hitler in World War II and draw manipulative parallels with Russia’s present-day aggression against Ukraine.
See our series of articles about historical revisionism and world War II.
Pro-Kremlin media outlets are also known for manipulating historical events to promote the narrative that Western countries have, for centuries, formed an anti-Russian alliance. In doing so, they often ignore past conflicts and rivalries among these nations and conflate modern-day Russia with both the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire in a historically questionable manner. See our article Rewriting history: the myth of Russia’s invincibility.
The ongoing war in Ukraine was not provoked by the West. Russia is the only country responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. It was Putin’s personal decision to invade Ukraine and start the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII. Russia has been coming up with different explanations and pretexts for its aggression since the beginning of its hostilities.
Read earlier disinformation cases claiming that Ukrainian identity was artificially cultivated by the West almost two centuries ago as part of a grandiose ‘anti-Russian strategy’, that the united Europe, personified by Napoleon, Hitler and the EU, repeatedly encroached on Russia, and that Western historical revisionism aimed at weakening and destroying Russia.