DISINFO: The West needs Ukrainian land and slaves
SUMMARY
The West needs Ukrainian land and slaves. The ill and the elderly are superfluous. Ukraine is losing its statehood and sovereignty. It is facing social genocide. English has been proposed as a second state language because slaves should know a minimum of words and phrases to understand their master’s orders.
RESPONSE
Two recurring disinformation narratives at play: denigrating Ukraine and smearing the West.
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets, claiming that the European Union and the United States only care about Ukraine in as much as their own interests are concerned. In reality, Ukraine is facing overt Russian aggression, which undermines its economy and drains enormous resources, and the West provides it with financial and technical assistance. What the West is really interested in is how to stop the war that has been going on in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas for over 7 years. It was triggered by Russia’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
Since then, the European Union, together with donors such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, have mobilised more than €15 billion in grants and loans to support the reform process in Ukraine. Ukraine and the EU signed the Association Agreement in 2014, which promotes deeper political ties and stronger economic links between Kyiv and Brussels.
Concerning English as a second state language, the Chairman of Ukraine’s Security Council Oleksii Danilov came up with this proposal on 9 March 2021. Strange as it may have seemed for many in Ukraine, this statement had nothing to do with the alleged enslavement of the Ukrainian people. Danilov explained that English must be the second language in Ukraine:
“in order for you and me to be protected from the attacks from which we suffer today from the Russian Federation''.
This propaganda claim is consistent with a misleading and disinformation report aired on a Russian TV channel as early as 2014, claiming that the Ukrainian authorities had promised every Ukrainian soldier fighting in Donbas a parcel of land there and two slaves.
See related disinformation claims alleging that Ukraine is an abandoned third-rate colony and that the West is preparing for the disintegration of Ukraine.