Considering that the Ukrainian armed forces and neo-Nazi militias integrated into the National Guard are promoting genocide against Russians, it seems necessary to seek to achieve the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. Writes Lucas Leiroz
Kiev and the West accuse Russia of promoting an invasion against the Ukrainian soil and a campaign of extermination of the local population. Every day, Russians release official notes denying unsubstantiated accusations about alleged attacks on civilians and “war crimes”. However, the Western media tries to omit the crimes of Kiev’s forces in every possible way. In fact, the Zelensky government’s campaigns against the Russian-speaking population continue, with attacks being carried out in the Donbass region.
On March 14 Ukrainian armed forces heavily attacked Donbass. Tochka-U missiles reached civilian targets in the Donetsk People’s Republic, with the attack hitting residential and commercial areas, with no military targets nearby. Dozens of people died or were injured. There are photos, videos and testimonies of survivors of the attacks circulating on various social media – mainly Telegram, VK and other Russian social networks, as Western tech companies are deleting content posted by Russian or Donbass citizens.
As expected, the same Western media agencies that spread fake news about the Russian Operation are omitting themselves in the face of the Ukrainian attack’s case, with no content available on virtual channels denouncing Kiev’s action. In the midst of a context of information warfare, promoting the narrative of the Russians as an “aggressor side” has been the highest bet of Western media – and to maintain this narrative it is necessary to hide any information that shows the crimes committed by Kiev and the real reasons that led Moscow to authorize, after almost a decade of conflict, a special operation on Ukrainian territory.
What happened this week, however, was nothing “new” for the Russian people of the Donbass. For eight years, massacres have been a routine in the region, which is constantly suffering from bombings and murders, whose main target is, in most cases, the civilian population itself. The anti-Russian hate and racist policies of ethnic extermination have made the conflict in Donbass one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the contemporary world.
The reason why the Western media tries so hard to hide Kiev’s crimes in the Donbass is simple to understand: this is the only way possible to legitimize the narrative of Russia as a state violating international law. Obviously, the invasion of one country by another is an illegal act, absolutely prohibited by international legal documents. But the same cannot be said about military intervention in defense of minority groups in situations of ethnic persecution and genocide. In these cases, there is legality in the foreign military action, considering the humanitarian norms. So, admitting Kiev’s crimes in the Donbass would also mean admitting the fact that there is not an “invasion” on Ukraine, but a military operation in defense of ethnic minorities in situation of genocide.
It is precisely on the basis of the need to protect the human rights of its population on Ukrainian soil that Russia began an operation to neutralize the Ukrainian military potential. Considering that the Ukrainian armed forces and neo-Nazi militias integrated into the National Guard are promoting genocide against Russians, it seems necessary to seek to achieve the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.
If international organizations had followed Russian requests to recognize the genocide in the Donbass and imposed sanctions on Kiev for its crimes, the current situation would certainly have been avoided. But at no time was there any willingness on the part of international society to help the people of Donbass. Moscow tried to resolve the case with a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights, attaching several irrefutable evidence about the veracity of the genocide allegations.
The Court, however, following the example of other international institutions, remained silent, keeping Ukraine unpunished. All this led to an extreme self-confidence on the part of the Zelensky government, which came to believe that it could act with full force in the Donbass without suffering any reprisal. The Russian recognition of the republics and the beginning of the Special Operation were simply the last possible alternative to stop the massacres.
Lucas Leiroz, researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
