Here are the five most common myths about events in Ukraine, together with a short explanation of why they are wrong.
The Russian propaganda machine has been full throttle in recent months, with television stations such as RT painting a completely different picture of the Euromaiden uprising in Ukraine than other, more independent outlets.
And it isn’t hard to work out why: Putin was constructing the purported rational for his invasion and annexation of Crimea which, according to the Russian narrative, was overrun by ‘fascists’ intent on persecuting Russian-speaking citizens and generally causing mayhem.
What’s been so depressing is the extent to which the Russian version of events in Ukraine has been so effortlessly adopted, to varying degrees, by some in the West.
Here are the five most common myths which are doing the rounds, together with a short explanation of why they are nonsense.
The EU/Nato ‘provoked’ Putin
Both Little Englander eurosceptics and the regressive left have been portraying Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea as a response to the ‘expansion’ of the European Union and Nato. Spouting the Russian line almost verbatim (some things never change), Seamus Milne wrote a few weeks ago that the Russian annexation of Crimea was the “fruit of western expansion”.
“The US and its allies have…relentlessly expanded Nato up to Russia’s borders, incorporating nine former Warsaw Pact states and three former Soviet republics into what is effectively an anti-Russian military alliance in Europe. The European association agreement which provoked the Ukrainian crisis also included clauses to integrate Ukraine into the EU defence structure,” Milne wrote.
In reality, Nato and the EU haven’t ‘expanded’ so much as welcomed into the security umbrella former communist states that were desperate to escape the Russian ‘sphere of influence’.
Considering these countries often languished under Russian-backed dictatorships for much of the 20th century, this should hardly come as a surprise. The Russian annexation of Ukraine should drive the point home further – are the Baltic states going to be watching events in Ukraine with a feeling of regret at joining Nato? Of course not. Russian aggression encourages Nato expansion, rather than the other way around.
It also isn’t necessary to speculate as to Vladimir Putin’s motivations in Crimea. As Putin said last week, he believes that “Crimea has always been part of Russia”. Less self defence in the face of ‘provocation’ and more naked imperialism. Putin has made no secret of his desire to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union. The invasion of Crimea should be seen in this context.
The new Ukrainian government is ‘fascist’
Were this actually true then it would be deeply concerning, only it isn’t. Ukrainian nationalists were certainly among those demonstrating against former President Viktor Yanukovych last month, but then so were plenty of Jews. And contrary to the Moscow line, the Ukrainian Jewish community believes that it is pro-Russian provocateurs, rather than Ukrainian nationalists, who are behind a recent spate of attacks on synagogues in Ukraine. Three of the new Ukrainian ministers denounced as ‘fascists’ by Moscow are also themselves Jews, such as deputy prime minister Vladimir Groisman.
Chairman of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine Josef Zissels has characterised Putin’s message of widespread Ukrainian anti-semitism as part of an “unprecedented massive Russian propaganda that recalls Soviet times”.
Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in an ‘illegal coup’
Listening to some of the more bitter arguments emanating from Russia and Russian apologists in the West, you could easily believe that former Ukrainian President Yanukovych was some kind of democrat, rather than a corrupt autocrat who had been beset by credible allegations of electoral fraud since he returned to office in 2010.
Rather than being thrown out in some sort of anti-democratic ‘coup’ last month, Yanukovych fled to Russia because the democratically elected Ukrainian parliament voted 328-0 to impeach him for the massacre of peaceful demonstrators. If you don’t believe that this is a good enough reason for the impeachment of a President (elected or otherwise) then I submit that you aren’t really a democrat.
Despite Russian rhetoric, the real coup was in Crimea, where the Crimean Assembly building was taken over at gunpoint by Russian forces pretending not to be Russian forces.
Russians living in Crimea are in danger
One Russian citizen has died in the current crisis, and he was shot by pro-Yanukovych snipers. Rumours spread by the Russian government – that Russian speakers in Crimea are threatened by the new government in Kiev – are just that: baseless rumours. More Crimeans have been fleeing from Crimea to other regions of Ukraine than Russians have been fleeing from Crimea and eastern Ukraine to Russia, mainly in order to escape heavily armed and violent Russian militias.
There is simply no evidence that Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea are threatened by the government in Kiev. Russian claims also have a worrying historical precedent: Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia was based on a German claim of privations being suffered by the ethnic German population in the country.
There is a moral equivalence between the actions of the West and those of Russia/Crimea demonstrates the West’s ‘hypocrisy’
It isn’t difficult to make this sort of self-flagellating argument, but it doesn’t contribute anything very useful to the debate. It can also lead a person to make silly comparisons. So for example, in the New Statesman last week Mehdi Hasan compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine to Nato intervention in Kosovo, ignoring the fact that in the case of the latter, intervention occurred on the back of a “systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments” by Serb forces (not my words, but those of the UN).
As Hasan writes:
“it is ‘illegal and illegitimate’ for Russia to try to detach Crimea from Ukraine by means of a dodgy referendum, Hague says. Indeed, it is. But was it any less illegal or illegitimate for the west to detach Kosovo from Serbia in 1999 with a 78-day Nato bombing campaign?”
I don’t know about ‘legality’ (an unreliable construct based on who votes which way at the UN Security Council), but the Russian annexation of Crimea is self-evidently more ‘illegitimate’ than Nato action in Kosovo. As the Economist put it this week: “Nato’s bombing of Kosovo came after terrible violence and exhaustive efforts at the UN – which Russia blocked”. Kosovo also seceded on its own initiative nine years after intervention and was not annexed in the manner of the Russian invasion of Crimea.
Western states can certainly be hypocritical, but the issue here is that Russia under Vladimir Putin is bullying and blackmailing its neighbours. Talking about Kosovo/Iraq/what Tony Blair had for lunch/Henry Kissinger/ is pure whataboutery.
48 Responses to “5 persistent falsehoods about events in Ukraine”
Duckworks
Putin’s land grab was all about securing Crimea’s huge territorial and offshore oil and gas reserves for Russia’s petro-elite, and protecting Gazprom’s monopoly. ‘Protecting ethnic Russians’ was a sham, and everyone but the wacky old commie Michael Parenti-types knows this. The only real puzzle is why Putin undertook this annexation at THIS time, on the eve of the previously planned G8 meeting in Sochi.
Duckworks
Sorry, but Mother Russia–Tsarist, Commie, or Gazprom-run–never ‘welcomed’ the Ukrainians, Tatars, or any other group under anything but an imperial yoke. Membership in NATO is voluntary; the old Warsaw Pact wasn’t. If you hate the West so much, maybe you should go to Russia, and enjoy the protection of Putin’s bosom.
Duckworks
Why don’t you mention the fact that over 600 people (journalists, etc.) ‘disappeared’ under Yanukovych? Or that Putin’s Russia is a homophobic, ethnic chauvinist gangster state that arbitrarily arrests and murders dissidents, rigs elections (witness the huge 2011 protests in Russia, by Russians, against the sham election), props up the murderous al Assad regime in Syria, and is run by an ex-KGB self-described thug who may have set up the 1999 apartment bombings that were used to justify a savagely brutal, near-genocidal war in Chechnya?
Matthew Rees
Nobody ever voted to join Nato but the people of Crimea have voted to rejoin Russia. What have you got against democracy?
Matthew Rees
The reuniting of Crimea wit Russia is based on massive popular support by the people of Crimea in a referendum. They chose to leave Ukraine which has a new government imposed by the force of a mob. Democracy is on Russia’s side in this one.