DISINFO: Ukraine's latest terrorist attack on civilians and on military sector in Russia proves Kyiv does not want peace
SUMMARY
Putin has always waged war with an eye on future peace. As hard as it was and far from free of civilian casualties, the war remained strictly tied to the front line, and to the rear only to the extent that they supplied the front.
Now Ukraine, with this double blow, on the one hand on civilians with a typically terrorist dynamic, and on the other hand on a military sector of maximum importance for national defence, the war makes a qualitative leap to which it is difficult to understand how Russia can react.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narratives claiming that Ukraine is not interested in peace, portraying it as a warmongering and terrorist state, and stating that Russia attacks only military targets.
These narratives are part of an ongoing pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign in Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They seek to paint the Ukrainian government as careless and warmongering and Russia as peace-lover / peace proposer.
Ukraine’s biggest strike of Sunday, 1st June 2025 have targeted legitimate military objectives, not civilians.
Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia, after using smuggled drones to launch a series of major strikes on 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called "Spider's Web" operation by the SBU security service, striking "34% of [Russia's] strategic cruise missile carriers".
By contrast, Russian attacks against non-combatants and civilian infrastructure, such as largest air attack of the war to date (as of late May 2025) which damaged mostly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, killing at least 12 people and injuring 79, have been a constant throughout the invasion, despite non-credible denials by Russian officials and pro-Kremlin disinformation. Since 2022, Russia has attacked civilian targets multiple times, including the city theatre in Mariupol, residential buildings, schools and energy facilities.
Ukraine has consistently sought a just peace, not surrender. Zelenskyy has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is open to negotiations, but only on terms that respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The idea that he is deliberately blocking peace ignores the fact that Russia has set conditions that Ukraine cannot accept because they undermine its independence, such as recognising occupied Ukrainian territories as Russian. It is Russia, not Ukraine, which started and escalated the war. The claim that Zelenskyy is preventing peace shifts the blame away from Russia, which is the aggressor. As we explore in our article, The Old Deceiver, this is entirely consistent with Moscow’s three-year-long strategy of attempting to claim ownership over the peace narrative while relentlessly pursuing war.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that In April 2022 Russians withdrew from Kyiv to demonstrate their readiness for peace, that West did not want peace, it prodded Ukraine into war, that Zelenskyy and the EU want a permanent war in Ukraine, that Russia attacked only military targets in Ukraine in response to Ukrainian strikes on civilians, 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,