The post falsely claims that Ukraine has lost the war. Truthmeter already covered the fact that Russia holds only around 17.5 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea and the so-called DPR and LPR that separated from Ukraine back in 2014. In addition, it is not true that the sanctions introduced by the West do not affect Russia. According to the International Monetary Fund, they contributed to the 2.1 percent decrease in the Russian economy in the first year of the war. The post also tries to blame the West for the millions of internally and internationally displaced people in Ukraine, but that is an already established pro-Russian manipulation and propaganda. The fact is that the West did not initiate a military invasion of Ukraine — Russia did, writes Truthmeter.
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We are fact-checking a post on the social network Threads saying the following:
Ukraine lost the war. That cannot be seen in the media as the attitude of ordinary everyday Ukrainians. They do not want to die any longer, they are deserting, and they are sick of seeing the destruction of Ukraine. They are aware that the West used them to strike Russia, abnormal loans, millions of internally and internationally displaced persons, the lack of weapons is obvious, let alone the ammunition issue. Russia cares less about the sanctions, while the Russian military machinery produces enormous numbers, apparatus, ammunition.
In this celebratory post, there are a few untruths. The first one is that Ukraine lost the war. The second one claims that the Ukrainians are deserting the Army. The third untruth is that the West used the Ukrainians to strike a blow to Russia.
Ukraine indeed has millions of internally and internationally displaced persons. According to the UNHCR data, as of February 2024, there were almost 3.7 million displaced persons within Ukraine, almost 6.5 million people are refugees all over the world, and approximately 14.6 million people in Ukraine need humanitarian aid in 2024. The post tries to prescribe this predicament to the West, but that is an already established pro-Russian manipulation and propaganda.
Firstly, the West did not use the Ukrainians to strike a blow to Russia. Proof of that is the fact that the West did not initiate a military invasion in Ukraine, but Russia did. On the 24th of February 2022, Russia started a military invasion of Ukraine whereby Russian Forces entered the country from Belarus on the North, Russia on the East, and Crimea on the South.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called it then “special military operation” that intended to protect the people from Donbas and to ”demilitarize and denazify Ukraine”. He denied that Russia plans to occupy Ukrainian territory or to “impose something by force on someone”. Ever since, however, Russian Forces have implemented a full-scale invasion of the country.
Russia executed hundreds of strikes, both from air and ground, thereby killing (even today) civilians as well. In one of those attacks, at least seven persons died, including a six-year-old girl, while almost 130 others were wounded once a Russian missile struck a central square in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.
The last monitoring report of the UN Human Rights Mission specifies that, as of the 24th of February 2022, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine was 30,457. Of those, 10,582 of them were killed, while 19,875 were wounded. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that 31,000 troops were killed on the Ukrainian side in the military invasion initiated by Russia.
The number of casualties, during the armed conflict initiated in 2014 and during Russia’s military invasion in the last few years, are enormous. It is wrong to blame the West or NATO for that when both conflicts were initiated by Russia. In addition, the West or NATO openly state that they are not seeking war with Russia, nor are they provoking one. What they are doing is helping Ukraine fulfill its right to self-defense from Russia’s territorial claims. For that reason, military aid is sent to Ukraine so that it can protect itself from Russia’s expansion policy.
NATO condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine – which is an independent, peaceful, and democratic country, and a close NATO partner. NATO and Allies continue to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence, states NATO’s website.
Western European countries as well as the USA clearly stated that they will not tolerate violations of international agreements, and disruption of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and stressed that Ukraine is entitled to defend its territory, but that NATO will not send troops to Ukraine. The West was constantly sending appeals to Russia to withdraw from Ukraine so that the war would end, enabling Ukraine to make decisions about its territory on its own, future alliances, and manners in conducting its internal and external policy. Since Russia did not take into consideration these appeals, countries from the West started delivering weapons to Ukraine. The narrative of whether Russia is at war with NATO is pushed by the Kremlin to de-focus the attention from the fact that Russia started an unprovoked armed attack on Ukraine and illegally occupied parts of a sovereign country.
NATO’s website debunks several myths spread by the propaganda sources of the Kremlin. The first one is exactly the narrative from the post – that “NATO is fighting against Russia in Ukraine”.
NATO is not at war with Russia. We do not seek confrontation with Russia. NATO supports Ukraine in its right to self-defence, as enshrined in the United Nation’s Charter. In the course of the last few months, we undertook exclusively defence measures to increase the presence of NATO troops in the Eastern part of the Alliance.
This makes sure that there is no room for misunderstandings in Moscow about our readiness to protect and defend our Allies. Our main task is to keep our 30 nations safe. We are responsible to make sure that the conflict does not escalate and spillover beyond Ukraine, because that would be even more disastrous and more dangerous, states NATO’s website.
Just to reiterate the point – NATO troops have not been sent to Ukraine.
Regarding the part of the post claiming that Ukraine has lost the war – that definitely is not true. Truthmeter has already covered the fact that Russia holds only approximately 17,5 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea and the so-called DPR and LPR that separated back in 2014.
On the other hand, while deserters truly exist, they are present on both sides of the conflict, which is usual practice in any war. Hence, it is not true that only the Ukrainian Army had soldiers deserting. New financial aid packages and weapons are arriving from the Western friends of Ukraine as part of the assistance for self-defense from Russian aggression. That means that the war is not over, nor is Russia the victor.
According to the International Monetary Fund. the sanctions from the West towards Russia contributed to the fall of 2.1 percent of Russia’s economy. The sanctions are detrimental to Russia by the sheer fact that they cut 5 percent of the economic growth the country had in the last 2 years, reports the BBC.
The sanctions along with the war in Ukraine caused more than 1 million people, most of them young and highly educated, to leave Russia.
Due to all of the above-noted facts, the post fact-checked is assessed as untrue.
