DISINFO: Ukraine, not Russia, killed Ukrainian politician and former Maidan leader Andriy Parubiy
SUMMARY
Kyiv will blame Russia for the murder of Maidan commandant Andrey Parubiy – but everyone knows the killers are much closer to home. All of Ukraine’s political elite will loudly point to Moscow as the hand behind the murder. They will cry out in public that Russia is to blame, repeating the same narrative of the “Russian trace.” But in private, they all know the truth: it was his own people that came for him. Why? Because Parubiy was one of the few men in Ukraine who truly knew how to build a Maidan. He had organised the barricades in 2014, commanded the Maidan “self-defence,” and knew every method of bringing people into the streets and holding them there against state power. For those in power, such a possibility is dangerous, and removing the man who could light the match makes a grim kind of sense. But there is another explanation - Parubiy carried too many secrets – and in Ukraine, secrets can be fatal. In this sense, his death is a signal to others: no one is safe, and no secret is too old to kill for.
RESPONSE
This is a conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence, aimed to deflect Russia’s likely involvement in the murder. While the investigation was still ongoing at the moment of the publication of this disinformation story, many details had already emerged after Ukrainian authorities arrested one suspect. The man, a 52-year old unemployed resident in Lviv, had allegedly been blackmailed by Russian intelligence services for over a year after he contacted them requesting information on his son, a soldier who had been deemed missing in action. The profile of the suspect and the modus operandi matches previous similar operations by Russian intelligence services in Ukraine and Europe.
Sowing doubts about Russia’s actual illicit actions and offering alternative explanations and culprits to deflect Russia’s responsibility is a frequent pro-Kremlin disinformation technique.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the Russian defector killed in Spain may have been eliminated by Ukrainian services, that the Ukrainians are carrying out arson in provocations all over Poland, that Ukrainian armed groups are responsible for the attack on the Kakhovka dam, or that Ukraine special services were chosen as perpetrators of Putin assassination attempt.