Siedem ulubionych ukrytych narracji rosyjskiej propagandy

We know that Russia has invested decades of efforts into make a distorted image of Ukraine in different parts of the planet – from Europe and America to Africa and Asia. Those efforts were visible before 2022 and became much more amplified after the full-scale Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There are many projects dedicated to debunking specified nonsense and false narratives, like Texty, The Reckoning Project, East Stratcom Taskforce, the Atlantic Council’s “Narrative Warfare” and “Undermining Ukraine”, as well as “We are Ukraine”, UAQA and others. Thanks to these resources the majority of the population inside and outside of Ukraine can separate Russian lies from facts.

Nevertheless, erstwhile analysing narratives about Ukraine and its war against unprovoked Russian aggression, 1 can find any stories much more digestible than others and more hard to be labelled as pure propaganda from Russia or its political and media satellites. The text below will be useful to those who request arguments in specified disputes.

1. Ukraine is just a proxy of NATO, which wages war with Russia in Ukraine.

This approach totally negates the agency of Ukraine. Ukraine has fought with Russia’s imperialist policies for centuries. Since the first days of the full-scale invasion in February and March 2022, erstwhile western support had not yet been organized, Ukraine’s society declared its will to resist. The US, European countries and another partners started to support Ukraine only erstwhile they saw that Ukrainians were truly eager to resist, and that the state, economy and army were resilient enough.

Moreover, it is Ukraine that sets the goals of the war. Ukrainian society and political leaders have proposed a expression for peace and defined their attitudes regarding various peace proposals. A permanent request for more well-defined and strict western positions and policies has been a constant part of the Ukrainian side’s argument. While Ukraine’s partners unfortunately frequently appear slow and besides careful, the country has defined the framework for its future.

2. Ukraine is an ally of the colonialist US and Europe, while Russia is simply a successor to the anti-colonialist USSR. Thus, this is simply a war between good and evil, where Ukraine fights on the side of evil.

This communicative is spread in the postcolonial countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, where colonialism is inactive a part of historical memory. These countries consider the USSR as a promoter of anti-colonialism due to the fact that they do not know that in its own area of interest (Central and east Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and Central and Northern Asia) the USSR historically demonstrated the worst kind of colonialism.

Ukraine’s war is simply a typical war of independence, an anti-colonial war for its right to specify its own future, interior and abroad policies, global alliances, etc. At the same time, Ukraine supports the decolonization of Russia, which continues its colonialist policy towards many indigenous peoples inside Russia. This is emphasized in resolutions of the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. So, Ukraine is on the anti-colonial side – against colonial Russia.

3. Ukraine is simply a country of highly aggressive people who proceed to fight erstwhile it has been possible to establish peace. Therefore, Ukraine does not want peace, it wants war.

To establish peace it is essential that 2 sides are ready. Putin has repeatedly emphasized that he is not ready for peace negotiations. The aggressive steps of his army and his individual demands like the demilitarization of Ukraine simply just open the door to further escalation, not to peace. The war crimes of the Russian army from Bucha to Mariupol proved that life in the occupied territories means the everyday threat of murder, rape, kidnapping, hostage-taking and looting.

Many Ukrainian warriors are common civilian people who joined the army to defend their cities, homes and families. Ukraine did not show any kind of aggression before the Russian invasion and never thought to invade Russia’s territory. What Ukraine needs is to liberate its own land from the occupiers – from the Kharkiv region to Crimea. The restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the liberation of Ukrainian land is simply a key component of the peace formula proposed by the Ukrainian leadership.

4. Ukraine is simply a nationalist state. Nationalism is an evil ideology that brought many disasters including planet wars, and now we see its emergence in Ukraine.

While the popularity of right-wing nationalistic parties is increasing across Europe, in Ukraine the last elections with a certain success for the right was 2012, erstwhile they got 8.2 per cent of seats. Since then, utmost right parties have lost in parliamentary elections in 2014 and 2019 (winning just 1.3 per cent of seats and then just 1 of 450 seats respectively). This reflects the real level of popularity of right-wing nationalist ideas in Ukraine’s multinational and multiconfessional society.

At the same time, state symbols are highly popular in Ukraine as symbols of opposition against Russian aggression. The national blue-and-yellow flag; the state coat of arms (the old Rus’ trident of the princes of Kyiv); the national anthem; and the map of its territory symbolize unity, resilience and opposition to Putin’s statements that Ukrainians people do not exist, or that Ukraine is simply a part of the Russian people. Ukraine has a long past and Ukrainians are arrogant of it.

5. Ukraine is an autocracy like Russia. Democracies should not support any organization in a war between autocratic regimes.

Ukraine is simply a parliamentary democracy with regular free elections and a advanced level of political competition (although, according to the Constitution, elections cannot be held in wartime due to legal, safety and another reasons). In its more than 30 years of independence, Ukraine has now seen its sixth president and its current parliament was elected in 2019 with 76 per cent being fresh faces. This contrasts with Russia, where Putin’s government has kept power for almost 25 years – a clear sign of an autocratic state.

One of the major reasons for Putin’s invasion is indeed democracy in Ukraine, which undermines his statements that democratic values do not match the mentality of east Europeans. Ukrainian democracy is the major foundation of Ukraine’s resilience. It is simply a actual nail in the coffin or a silver bullet erstwhile it comes to Putin’s autocratic government in Russia.

6. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia due to the fact that it has much less resources. Russia never loses wars. Russia is besides large and has atomic weapons, so it will prevail anyway.

There are many examples of a smaller country overcoming a bigger one, from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Also, Russia lost many wars in the past (the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War and Winter War are the most prominent examples), including 1 in Afghanistan during the atomic era.

Russia is simply a large but very archaic state; its resources are not unlimited. It can mobilize unskilled people but cannot produce weapons comparable to western ones. Only hidden backdoors to circumvent sanctions let Russia to buy components to proceed the war, which will be over as shortly as these backdoors are closed.

7. Ukrainians are besides emotional erstwhile telling of their experiences. Their trauma deprives them of the ability to judge, so that is why they cannot accept negotiations and establish peace.

It is actual that the emotional speech of Ukrainian storytelling shocks western readers. All the basic stories about the war already have been told, and repetition does not attract attention. But for Ukrainians this is simply a lived experience which continues day by day, 24/7, without any breaks. If you lose another friend or comparative after the first one, this is not the same story, it is simply a full fresh one.

When considering peace and war, Ukrainians look to be besides much engaged from the western point of view. This is due to the fact that respective generations of Europeans and Americans have never seen a war in their own territory. Despite this, their ancestors had the same emotional perceptions during the Second planet War. At the same time, emotions do not prevail in Ukraine, where war and peace are being discussed in the media and at various events all day. Pragmatism is simply a strong feature of Ukrainians, not emotions. The country is striving for atomic and ecological safety; food and energy security; the release of prisoners and those children and adults deported by Russia; the liberation of national territory; the cessation of hostilities; the prevention of escalation and repetition of aggression; and the restoration of justice. All of this is not about emotions. Instead, it is all about saving the lives of Ukrainians and the endurance of Ukraine as a country.

In a nutshell, despite the tremendous resources that Russia has invested in disinformation and spreading its narratives, it is not very hard to admit and refute them, or at least not spread them.

Valerii Pekar is simply a co-founder of the Nova Kraina Civic Platform, the author of 4 books, an adjunct prof. at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and a erstwhile associate of the National improvement Council.

Vladyslav Rashkovan is Alternate Executive manager of the global Monetary Fund, erstwhile Deputy politician of the National Bank of Ukraine and the co-author of 2 books.

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