The Kremlin has repeatedly tried to pass itself off as a victim of Western aggression in the war it waged on Ukraine
Russia remained locked in a diplomatic and military stalemate during 2023, largely isolated from the world and unable to claim any victory in the it waged against Ukraine.
This situation has been exacerbated by the , military equipment, and ammunition. The replenishment of human resources meant the Kremlin had to take highly unpopular measures like military mobilization while the acceleration of military production was by Western sanctions, limiting the entry of investments and high technologies into Russia.
In such conditions, the Kremlin had to redesign its hybrid warfare and try influencing foreign public opinion to achieve a temporary truce and lift sanctions “.”
As part of its hybrid warfare, the Kremlin's propaganda tried to convince domestic and foreign audiences that Russia is not an aggressor in the war with Ukraine but a victim and that the West attacked Russia by using Ukraine.
Below are most frequently repeated false and misleading statements on this topic that Polygraph.info has tracked and refuted in 2023:
Claiming victimhood was a routine talking point of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s public speeches throughout the year.
In June, for example, Putin that since the day it gained independence in December 1991, Ukraine was never actually independent but controlled by the West, which nurtures a hostile “anti-Russia” attitude.
In fact, Ukraine fought against Russia’s colonial dominion for centuries and the latest war only added to existing historical grievances.
Since February 2022, by the Ukrainian estimates, Russia has killed at least 30,000 Ukrainian civilians. The United Nations verified over 10,000 civilian deaths, noting that actual numbers are likely significantly higher. Thousands are missing and millions are homeless. Russia destroyed dozens of Ukrainian cities, towns and villages, and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children.
As for controlling Ukraine: The country had . Only three of them were pro-Western; two had oscillated between Moscow and the West, and one was strictly pro-Russian. From 1991 to 2018, Russia has been Ukraine’s key economic partner.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) remained another villain in Putin’s tales. The Russian leader routinely blamed NATO for his decision to attack Ukraine. He repeatedly that despite the promise given to Russia in 1990, NATO expanded to the East and “reached Ukraine.”
There was . Since its establishment in 1949, NATO has never changed its “open door policy.” The United States, Europe and Russia have never signed any treaty or agreement containing provisions limiting NATO membership for Eastern European countries.
But blaming the West and NATO for the war was not enough. Putin went further to that Russia never “unleashed” the war against Ukraine, but that it was .
Russia on Ukraine in 2014 when Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and then sent to secretly seize in Donbas, effectively launching a power grab of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine responded to Russian active measures by launching what Kyiv called an “anti-terrorist operation.” Subsequently, Russia sent regular troops to Donbas and annexed it.
On February 24, 2022, Putin himself announced a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. It went : Russian missile and bomb attacks were carried out on the largest cities of Ukraine, and tank columns surrounded the capital of the country, Kyiv.
Russia had been planning the war for months while simultaneously carrying out a massive disinformation campaign, denying and concealing preparations for the invasion.
Putin’s verbal attacks on Ukraine also include claiming that Ukrainians routinely blow up, rape and kill fellow citizens under instructions from their “Western curators” like in the cases of Bucha, Mariupol, or the .
By the time it exploded, the Kakhovka dam had been under Russian control for more than 15 months. There is an abundance of evidence Russia’s claims that the station was hit by Ukrainian missiles or artillery shelling. Experts conclude that an underground explosion was the most likely cause of the destruction that led to massive flooding and the suffering of thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov that “Russian military infrastructure has never moved toward Western Europe, there has always been a movement in the opposite direction.”