DISINFO: Ukraine's advance into Kursk Ruins Peace Negotiation Prospects
SUMMARY
Ukrainian forces carried out a terrorist attack in the Kursk region, openly violating international law. These incursions into Russian territory destroy any possibilities for negotiations and peace. The Ukrainian government, controlled by criminal groups ("bandit junta"), is responsible for the atrocities and terrorist acts against Russian civilians and civilian infrastructure, making any diplomatic relations or negotiations impossible.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative around peace in Ukraine, often used since the beginning of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, this time repurposed to address Ukraine's advance into the Kursk region.
Russia has attacked Ukraine. Moscow's armed aggression is unprovoked, illegal and unjustified and Ukraine acts in its self-defence under the UN Charter, Article 51. This includes the right to strike military targets in Russia involved in Moscow's campaign and attacking Russian forces inside Ukraine, including Russian military bases in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories such as the Donbas and Crimea.
Kyiv is ready for talks with Moscow on the basis of international law and respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented a 10-point peace plan at a EU-Ukraine summit in February 2023, which was fully supported by the EU and which provided for a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine till the borders of 1991 and the restoration of Kyiv’s territorial integrity. While Ukraine is ready for dialogue, based on international law and the UN Charter, Russia is putting forward unacceptable conditions such as recognition of occupied Ukrainian territories as part of Russia.
As a previous EUvsDisinfo analysis from June 2024 concluded, in pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives the idea of ‘peace’ is inextricably linked to the calls for ‘accepting the new territorial reality’. This essentially means accepting Russian annexation of Ukrainian lands as a reasonable pre-condition for peace, and if Ukraine or the West are refusing to accept this ‘reality’ they become the aggressors and the reason for prolonged war. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have a track record of pretending negotiations which are just blunt demands for Ukrainian unconditional surrender.
We have analysed and exposed this disinformation tactic in several other articles, especially: "Prepare for winter" (30 Nov. 2023), "Russian so-called ‘peace proposals’ are empty PR stunts" (18 Jan. 2023) , "What He Said and What it Really Means – Vol. 2: “Negotiations” (1. March 2022) and "The Kremlin security demands" (21 Dec. 2021).
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Russia wants to end war but NATO refuses and prods Ukrainians into action, that Ukraine wants to negotiate with Russia because it failed at the front, that the West is not interested in resolving the Ukrainian conflict, or that the West ordered Ukraine to refuse peace talks.