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“Every day we fight for everyone on the planet to finally understand: we are not a colony, we are not an enclave, we are not a protectorate. Not a governorate, not an ejalet, not a crown land, not a piece of a foreign empire, not a ‘part of the country’, not a federal republic. Not an autonomous zone, not a province, but a free, independent, sovereign, indivisible and independent state.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
August 24, 2022 marks the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. This year’s Independence Day has a special significance because it coincides with Russian President Putin’s six-month war of aggression against the people of Ukraine, their sovereignty and cultural identity.
Kremlin disinformation and propaganda have accompanied and supported Russian military actions in Ukraine, including the attempted annexation of Crimea, support for separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, and the ongoing war of aggression. The Kremlin repeatedly tries to delegitimize Ukraine as a nation and state in the eyes of the Ukrainian and Russian public, as well as the international community.
Exposing President Putin’s Playbook
President Putin regularly denies that Ukraine is a real nation. In 2008, he told President Bush “Ukraine is not a country”, and in July 2021 he publicly identified Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” and stated that “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia”. Putin has repeatedly tried to portray Ukraine as “entirely created by Russia” on Russian “historic lands,” claiming that Ukraine is an “inalienable part of… [Russia’s] own history, culture and spiritual space.” In a February 2022 epistle, he blamed the first Soviet leader, Vladimir Lenin, for “creating Lenin’s Ukraine” and called it “worse than a mistake”, launching a full-scale war days later in an attempt to redraw the map according to his own distorted version of history . Over the past six months, Russia’s disinformation and propaganda machine has used Putin’s false claims as a blueprint for campaigns aimed at denying Ukraine its right to independence and even existence.
Imperialism Redux and Weaponization of Maps
Imperial revanchism permeates the Kremlin’s propaganda as it tries to disguise Russia’s desire to recolonize Ukraine. Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy President of the Security Council and former President of Russia, showed cards to question Ukraine’s legitimacy as a state. Medvedev invoked visions of Russia’s imperial past, sharing in a Telegram post on July 27 a before-and-after map of the region where Ukraine has been reduced to just the area around Kiev with the headline: “In the drugged brain of President Zelensky, the picture of his nation’s bright future may look like this, but Western analysts think that in reality it will be like this.”
Medvedev cited these supposed “Western analysts” to propagate Russia’s colonial fantasy: imagining that the territory of Ukraine would be reduced to only the Kiev region, while the rest of Ukraine would be divided between Russia, Poland, Romania and Hungary. Such a narrative is reminiscent of Putin’s February 2022 speech questioning Ukraine’s statehood and accompanying increasingly intense Russian calls to expand its “special military operation” to pursue its imperial map. Read also : The United States: the end of the illusion of omnipotence. The head of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR), Denis Pushilin, falsely claimed that the “Russian cities” of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odesa and Dnipro must be “liberated from Nazism”, while the president of the “Crimean Parliament” Vladimir Konstantinov added Mikolayev and Kharkiv to this list.
Russian Historical and Cultural Propaganda Wants to Erase Ukrainian Cultural Identity
Ukraine has existed as a distinct cultural and national identity for centuries, and Putin’s attempts to forcefully assimilate them into Russian culture are particularly abhorrent given the Soviet Union’s historical targeting of Ukrainian citizens. On the same subject : Electrolux Professional sells business in Russia to the local management. Under Joseph Stalin, more than three million Ukrainians died in the Holodomor or Great Famine – a purely artificial food shortage where the entire population of Ukraine was considered secondary to the implementation of the Soviet Five Year Economic Plan.
In addition to cutting off the region from Ukrainian telecommunications, the Russian government is putting up billboards in Kherson depicting famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and historical commander Alexander Suvorov with the slogan “Kherson – a city with Russian history” and patriotic quotes. The posters probably serve two purposes : to affirm a shared cultural history and to respond to Ukraine’s removal of several Pushkin statues across the country. As one commentator described them, the billboards are the culmination of Russia’s “bloody” establishment of control through “Tanks – War – Death – Occupation – Pushkin”. At the same time, busts of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko were defaced, Ukrainian museums were burned and looted, and when UNESCO officials visited Ukraine in July, they confirmed that more than 160 cultural sites had been damaged since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. Russian bombing even damaged the monument in Babin Yar, where the Nazis executed 100,000 Jews and other Ukrainians during World War II.
Dehumanizing Rhetoric Plus Denials and Threats
Russian propagandists use dehumanizing language about Russia’s war in Ukraine. In his prime-time propaganda program “Solovyev Live”, Vladimir Solovyov used a metaphor comparing Ukrainians to worms that a veterinarian removes from a cat in a “special operation”. On the show “60 Minutes”, host Olga Skabeyeva said that Ukraine is a “non-existent country”, while one of her guests characterized the conflict as a “holy war” and described Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov as “the last mistake in a series that we still have to put in his place.” Belarusian dictator Lukashenko said on July 21 that the question of whether Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson are part of Ukraine “is no longer under discussion. See the article : The United States is taking enforcement action against confidence in interests held by the Russian oligarch.” MFA spokeswoman Zakharova denied US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s July 13 statement condemning Russia’s systematic infiltration camps and forced deportation of at least 1.6 million Ukrainians. Both Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and the US-sanctioned, SVR-led New Eastern Outlook have recently claimed that Poland is next on the list for Russian “demilitarization” of NATO.
The Puppetry of Annexation
Putin’s statements falsely portrayed Moscow’s seizure of Ukrainian land as a “return and strengthening” of Russian territories, especially as the Kremlin escalated its efforts to annex parts of southern Ukraine. In an interview on July 20, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed Moscow’s long-term intentions for its further invasion of Ukraine, saying that “the geography has changed” since the talks with Kiev in March: “Now we’re not just talking about Donetsk and Lugansk provinces. It’s Kherson , Zaporizhzhya and other territories.” Russian authorities and their proxies in Kherson and Zaporozhye reiterated those claims by announcing that the election commission would hold a referendum on joining Russia. Meanwhile, Russian authorities are integrating “specialists” into the security services of Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories and pushing for the establishment of permanent Russian military bases in Zaporizhzhya province that would serve as a “security guarantee” and deter Ukraine’s efforts to liberate those areas. Russia is stepping up its “passport” policy by requiring Ukrainian business owners to re-register their businesses with Russian passports. Finally, Russian proxies released a video on social media announcing the creation of the “Odesa Brigade,” claiming that Odesa and Mykolaiv are the next targets of Russian “liberation.” The Kremlin likely intends these efforts to counter an announced offensive by Kiev to retake Kherson and Zaporizhzhya by the end of the year. Russian authorities in Kherson also announced the formation of the 5th July of the “Khersonian government” to be led by “Russian professionals ” and modeled after the authorities governing Russia’s federal entities to help speed up “reintegration” despite the ostensible election by referendum. Both tactics aim to deny Ukrainian statehood and legitimize Russian colonialism.
All claims by the Kremlin that the Ukrainian people yearn to join Russia are simply not true. Public opinion polls show an overwhelming consensus among Ukrainians that they oppose Russian aggression. According to a June 2022 University of Chicago poll, 97 percent of Ukrainians see the Russian invasion as a major threat to Ukraine’s security, and 97 percent want Russia to compensate Ukraine for the destruction it has caused.
False Claims About Ukrainians’ Affinity for Russia
Russia’s ecosystem of disinformation and propaganda works to show that people living in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine are eager for Russian rule. In every Russian-controlled region, there are credible reports of occupation authorities denying food, water and medical aid to Ukrainian civilians until they accept Russian passports. State propaganda media such as Sputnik then portray lines of residents seeking Russian passports as voluntary, with residents offering convenient pro-Kremlin statements. Russian state media widely reported a July 14 statement by the outgoing head of the Russian-appointed “military-civilian administration” of Zaporozhye, Yevgeny Balitsky, that a referendum on whether to “join Russia or not” would be held in the first half of September. Balitsky added, “we will not be another Kosovo,” arguing that NATO split the former Yugoslavia without a referendum. Nevertheless, the survey data show that in a free referendum, Ukrainians in the occupied territories would not decide to join Russia. A May 2022 poll by the National Democratic Institute found that only 3 percent of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to join the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Union, and 90 percent wanted Ukraine to become a member state of the European Union, with the lowest numbers in the east and south, still the vast majority of 84 percent. Recognizing this reality, the Russian authorities are stepping up efforts in “re-education”. As Balitsky and other Kremlin-appointed officials spread rhetoric of “denazification” and the Russian-appointed “governor” of Zaporozhye Anton Koltsov forms a puppet government, efforts to impose a new education system on Ukrainians in Russian-controlled territories are intensifying. The Washington Post has reported Moscow is offering teachers in Russia lucrative salaries to move to Zaporizhzhya and Kherson to “correct” what they taught children there in the past.
The Kremlin’s state media falsely claims that Ukrainians in the Kharkiv region are also seeking a Russian identity. Vitaly Ganchev, who was appointed by Russia as the “head of the provisional civil administration of Kharkiv province”, claimed in a July 6 interview with TASS that residents of the “liberated” Kharkiv region “aim to join Russia.” “People hear that there is a vertical of power, we pass laws, the introduction of the ruble fills a key economic niche and they reorient themselves to accept the new reality,” he said. The Kremlin’s disinformation assets immediately amplified these false claims. In April, Ganchev was charged by the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office with high treason for cooperating with Russian forces and attempting to re-organize a “referendum” to declare the “People’s Republic of Kharkiv.” His tactics appear to be aimed at laying the groundwork for an attempted annexation of Russian-controlled areas, which make up 30% of the Kharkiv region, and appear to be aligned with Russia’s stepped-up “passport production” efforts.
The data is clear: the Ukrainian people, in any free and fair referendum, would vote overwhelmingly against joining Russia, including those living in eastern and southern Ukraine. In an April 2022 poll by the International Republican Institute, more than 90 percent of Ukrainians said their opinion of Russia had worsened since the February 24 invasion. Russian officials recognize this reality despite their disinformation and propaganda efforts. US intelligence indicates that Russian officials are concerned about low voter turnout in these fake referendums and know that their efforts to legitimize the illegal land grab lack legitimacy and will not reflect the will of the people.
Ukrainians are deeply united in the face of the all-out invasion of Russia. Polls reflect that Ukrainians are committed to the democratic development of their country, with a historic 94 percent saying a fully functioning democracy is important to them. Despite the large-scale invasion, 87 percent of Ukrainians show unprecedented optimism about Ukraine’s future.
Ukraine Will Remain Sovereign and Independent
31 years ago, the people of Ukraine declared their independence as a sovereign nation. Since 2014, and especially over the past six months, the world has witnessed President Putin use both military force and misleading statements to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty. He failed in this goal despite the suffering he caused Ukraine. As this war continues, the courage and strength of the Ukrainian people has been incredible. As Secretary Blinken pointed out, “Ukraine has not and will not be conquered. It will remain sovereign and independent. The United States and our allies and partners will continue to stand with them and help provide them with exactly what they need to defend their freedom.”
How many US soldiers died in all wars?
| War or conflict | Date | Total number of deaths in the US |
|---|---|---|
| In total | ||
| American Expeditionary Force Siberia | 1918–1920 | 328 |
| China | 1918; 1921; 1926–1927; 1930; in 1937 | |
| World War II | 1939–1945 | 405,399 |
How many have died in Ukraine conflict 2022?
UN says at least 5,587 killed in Ukraine since war began The United Nations has confirmed 5,587 civilian deaths and 7,890 injuries in Ukraine since Russia’s February 24 invasion. U.N. Office
How many died in the Ukrainian war in 2022? From 1 to 21 August 2022, OHCHR recorded 841 civilian casualties: 207 killed (53 men, 55 women, 2 girls, 2 boys and 95 adults whose gender is not yet known); i. 634 injured (153 men, 136 women, 15 girls, 15 boys, as well as 9 children and 306 adults whose gender is not yet known).
How many Russians died in Ukraine war?
Ukraine has raised its estimate of the number of Russian soldiers killed in the conflict to 43,000, as The Grid’s Josh Keating reported earlier this week. NATO estimated the losses of Russian soldiers at between 7,000 and 15,000.
What are Russian losses in Ukraine?
Russia has already lost 45,700 soldiers, 1,924 tanks and 1,036 artillery systems in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Details: Total combat losses of Russian forces between February 24 and August 24, 2022 are estimated at [numbers in brackets represent latest losses – ed.]:
How many Ukrainians have died?
Ukrainian civilians have paid a heavy price: 5,587 are confirmed dead, but the true number is believed to be in the tens of thousands. The number of refugees exceeded 6.6 million. Military losses were heavy on both sides, with around 9,000 Ukrainians and as many as 25,000 Russians reportedly killed.
