Russian lies vs Reality
Introduction
In a previous post I claimed that I had already reached the maximum of argumentation that can be done to support Ukraine. But then I discovered that I hadn't done almost any work of disproving opposing arguments. In this text, I'll do exactly that.
Using the maximum degree of good faith, I will depict the strongest pro-Russian arguments in the best way I can and do my best to rebut them using factual claims and sources, but not excluding moral consideration and appeals.
I did not make any special consideration about my sources, beyond basic criteria. In some sections, I also directly cite previous research I have done, which you can follow directly to the sources I used for that.
For the record, I do not think this is useful. One of the bad things about propaganda is that it focuses the conversation on topics that are beneficial to the side spreading it, and overshadows other, extremely important topics. Given that I have already focused on these conversations extensively, I think this thought exercise has some worth, if only to substantively settle some questions.
Claim 1: NATO Expansion caused the War
Claim:
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the American led military alliance expanded closer to the Western border of the newly created Russian Federation. This was explicitly against the wishes of the Russian leadership, and in direct violation of an agreement that Mikhail Gorbachev made with James Baker. In that agreement, James Baker promised that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" in exchange for German reunification.
By willingly infringing on the National Security of the Russian Federation, NATO backed Russia into a corner where Russia had to invade Ukraine to prevent encirclement
Counterclaim
This is false on multiple levels.
First off, the characterization of the Baker-Gorbachev dialogue is false. Apart from the fact that this was a verbal, non-binding assurance, it only applied to NATO Expansion to east Germany. Anything else would frankly not make sense, as a full collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact was not expected. Gorbachev himself acknowledges this (1):
“The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
Second, Russian leadership agreed with the expansion of NATO. The US actually went out of their way to make them agree with it (2). Clinton and Yeltsin specifically agreed upon the date in which NATO enlargement would be announced, and the Russian Federation received generous concessions in return. This process also brought about the NATO-Russia Founding Act and the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership with Ukraine, indicating significant diplomatic efforts (3).
One aspect of this that is often overlooked is that the US weren't the actor pushing for this development. Rather, the newly independent Eastern European states were hell-bent on receiving security guarantees to be safe from their former oppressors (4).
However, even if one were to grant all the previous points to the opposing side (which would be foolish), this still doesn't translate into a motivation to start hostilities with Ukraine. When Russia first began its advances in 2014, there was no way of Ukraine getting NATO membership. It had been denied to them six years earlier (5) and no significant factor had changed since then.
And even granting the entire argument, a sovereign country joining a military alliance of its choosing is not a legitimate casus belli. It is fully in Ukraine's purview to join NATO. Russian national security concerns do not and cannot overrule those of its neighbors. If they would have started the war due to NATO enlargement, they would still be at fault.
Sources
Claim 2: The Maidan was a Western coup
Claim:
The Maidan protest which ultimately ended Yanukovych's presidency were an illegitimate coup carried out by Western intelligence services because he went against their interests. In the aftermath, they installed leadership which was subservient to them, causing friction with Russia, eventually resulting in the current war.
Counterclaim
Originally, the Maidan was started by a post of a Russian speaker, who wanted to organize a protest concerning Yanukovych not signing the EU association agreement (1). These lasted for about a week until riot police tried to violently dislodge them (2). This achieved the opposite effect, as the population was galvanized against the government.
After a while, it became clear that Yanukovych could not hold on to power, prompting a period of negotiations with the opposition, mediated by EU countries. During that time period, clashes on the streets decreased in scope.
However, violence on both sides broke out on February 18th, and on February 20th, Snipers opened fire on the protesters. While both sides managed to negotiate an agreement on the same day, the Ukrainian parliament passed a resolution prohibiting the use of police against protesters.
This prompted riot police units leaving the city, and with them, Yanukovych also left the capital (3). After that, parliament removed him from office and installed an interim prime minister. Oleksandr Turchynov stayed in power for three months, organizing the election that brought Petro Poroshenko in power. He in turn, was voted out of office in favor of Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 (1).
With this in mind, it is impossible to take the claim of "installed leadership" seriously. As for the involvement of Western leadership, it was focused on reaching a compromise between the protesters and Yanukovych. To this day, no hard evidence of intelligence meddling in the protest has been produced, and it is frankly not plausible that a protest movement with millions of participants can be "created" by the CIA or the MI6.
The Maidan does not meet any serious definition of a coup. It was a mass, organic protest movement that culminated in the president fleeing the country, followed by the restoration of constitutional authority and the holding of competitive elections.
Sources
Claim 3: Ukraine is a Nazi state
Claim:
After the 2014 coup in which a lot of far-right Ukrainian movements like Right Sector and Svoboda were instrumental, they took control of the government. These movements arose out of general pro-fascist sentiment in Ukraine, centered on the idolization of Stepan Bandera, who cooperated with the Nazis during the Second World War. There is a hero cult around him, which also shows in the existence of paramilitary groups like Azov, who are open neo-nazis, to the point of having SS tattoos.
Counterclaim
I have already dealt with the coup being a lie, so I won't re-litigate this here. Far-Right groups were indeed present at these protests, but they didn't make up a plurality of the protesters and only had minimal impact on the revolution's outcome (1). It is also true that they gained political power during the interim government, but they didn't have overwhelming control (2). Apart from that they also lost all their parliamentary seats in the next election (3). Since then, they have not been able to gain electoral success (4).
This, along with the fact that the current president of Ukraine, Volodymr Zelensky, won the 2019 election in a landslide (5), virtually disproves that there is popular pro-fascist sentiment in Ukraine. If that were true, a native Russian speaker from a Jewish family would have hardly won more than 70 percent of the vote. Crucially, this also means that Ukrainian leadership doesn't worship at the altar of fascism and isn't dominated by neo-nazis.
As for Azov, they do not have any real significance. They were a small volunteer unit (the Azov Battalion) that emerged after the annexation of Crimea and helped in the battles against Russian separatists and the standard armed forces in the Donbas. Early on, they were very radical and had an extremist ideology. Later on, they were incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces (as the Azov regiment) and depoliticized, with far-right radicals being discharged in 2017 (6,7).
In conclusion, all of the claims supporting the charge of Ukraine being a Nazi State are misleading and incompatible with the facts of the situation.
Sources
Claim 4: Russia is defending Russian speakers
Claim:
Ukraine is basically split into two parts. One part that is controlled by the West and populated by the nationalists, with large Russian minorities, and one part is essentially Russian. After the 2014 coup, the nationalists were about to attack the Russians, which is why Russia seized Crimea, and supported independent separatist movements in the Donbas. In a brutal war against those movements, Ukraine murdered 14 000 civilians. The special military operation starting in 2022 had the final goal of securing and stabilizing the situation.
Counterclaim
None of this is true. All parts of Ukraine, including Crimea, agreed to Ukrainian independence in a referendum (1). Through a long history of subjugation and colonialism, a lot of the Ukrainian population are Russian speakers, and there is a portion of ethnic Russians. In fact, all Ukrainians are bilingual in this way (even in the border regions everyone has a cursory passive understanding of them), but that does not mean they see themselves as part of Russian civilization. Sure, around 2014, there was a minority that held this position, but a majority was against it. (2)
This showed in how much the Russian Federation had to involve themselves to fake a separatist movement. There also was no plan by the interim government to attack and harass Russian speakers in Crimea or the Donbas. Following the flight of Yanukovych, the government hadn't even established control of the security forces in those regions by the time that Russian forces showed up in Crimea, subsequently annexing it.
Russian involvement continued in the Donbas regions, where a Russian political consultant and another former member of Russian security services declared new people's republics. From the beginning, their efforts were lightly supported by Russian equipment, but after the Ukrainian army started pushing them back, regular armed forces crossed the border. (3)
In the entirety of that conflict, 14 000 people on both sides, including military personnel, died (4). Since the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022, the eastern regions of Ukraine have suffered numerous more losses due to brutal Russian war tactics.
In sum, Russia is the most destructive force when it comes to Ukraine's eastern regions, and it's primarily Russian speaking population. With no provocation, they have created enormous harm, razing whole cities like Bucha (5) and Mariupol (6) to the ground. If that is their notion of defending a people, then I'd prefer not to be defended by them.
Sources
Claim 5: Ukraine is historically Russian
Claim:
Ukraine didn't really exist until the Soviet Union. It is a modern invention that doesn't reflect the historical background of the territory. From the time of the Kyivan Rus, the territory had been part of Russia and integral to its civilization.
Counterclaim
This is ahistorical. At the time of the Kyivan Rus', the categories of "Ukraine" or "Russia" didn't exist. It was a multi-ethnic state, governed by Viking princes and split into a multitude of principalities, which eventually collapsed (1).
Using this for any claim to a territory is just absurd, as is claiming that there is an uninterrupted line of heritage from the Rus' Princes to today's president of the Russian Federation.
The entirety of Ukraine's modern territory wasn't brought under full Russian control until the end of World War 2 (2). Until then, it had always been split between empires. One time, it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had a nobles' democracy (3), then it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Ukrainians learnt to do mass politics and elected members of the parliament (4).
There had also been times when parts of the territories enjoyed full independence, as in the Cossack Hetmanate (5) or the Ukrainian People's Republic (6).
Accordingly, Ukraine has a different political and cultural background than Russia. Ever since the accession of the Cossack Hetmanate to the Russian Empire in 1654, there had been various different movements for autonomy or outright independence from it.
Just to bring up some examples, there was the Mazepa uprising from 1708-1709 (7). After the Napoleonic wars, a form of Ukrainian nationalism emerged, based on the romantic movement, looking for founding myths of their country. In the 19th century, these became more overt, with the "Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius" secretly advocating for an autonomous Ukraine inside a loose Slavic federation (8).
I could go on but you get the point. Once Ukrainian territories entered into political relations with Muscovy, they did not simply become part of a shared “Russian” project. Instead, they retained and developed distinct political traditions and repeatedly resisted incorporation on Moscow’s terms. It wasn't and isn't an integral part of "Russian civilization".
Sources
Claim 6: Ukraine/The West is sabotaging peace
Claim:
Since the start of the war in 2022, Ukraine and its western allies have prevented peace. There was a deal ready as early as April of that year, but Boris Johnson pressured the Ukrainians to reject it, which they ended up doing. Since then, there haven't been any legitimate attempts by Ukrainian diplomacy, which only ended with Donald Trump's return to the presidency. The deal that his special envoy, Witkoff negotiated was fair and accepted by Russia, but Ukraine declined.
This points to a clear pattern of Ukraine not accepting peace, and the West egging them on to fulfill the interests of their arms exporters.
Counterclaim
Once again, this couldn't be further away from the truth. At the beginning, it was clear that the Russian negotiating position was unconditional surrender (1). After Russian forces decidedly failed to capture Kyiv, some kind of plan was on the table, but sticking points remained (2).
As late as 29th March, the Ukrainians proposed a road to peace in which they would remain neutral in exchange for security guarantees (3). Russia shot it down on the next day (4).
But as the Russian forces retreated from the previously occupied areas, the Ukrainians discovered the horrific war crimes they committed (among others) in Bucha (which would be unveiled on April 1st) and Irpin. With those revelations, trust in the Russian side collapsed and the peace talks grinded to a halt.
On April 9th, Boris Johnson visited Ukraine, and is indirectly quoted as saying:
"The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not. We can sign [an agreement] with you [Ukraine], but not with him. Anyway, he will screw everyone over"
At this point, this was common sentiment of the Ukrainian leadership and hardly anything new.
From that point onward, there wasn't even a pretense of the Russian realistic demands for peace. In September, the foreign minister stated that even the agreement tentatively agreed to previously was no longer on the table (5).
Keep in mind that throughout all this time, high level representatives of western countries such as Scholz (6a) and Macron (6b) had been directly negotiating with Putin, to no end (6c).
As for the "28 point peace plan" by Steve Witkoff, you can look up my previous commentary (7,8), but I'll summarize it here: The plan structurally benefited Russia, was developed with no Ukrainian participation and included only vague concessions to Ukraine.
To address the structural claim: No, it is not in Western interests to keep the war in Ukraine ongoing. For the arms factories, a Ukrainian loss would mean further European rearmament and thus more investment, while the entire Western economy would benefit from the opportunity to rebuild Ukraine.
On the contrary, by that logic, it is Russia who benefits from a prolonged war. They have restructured their entire economy to focus on the war effort and an end to hostilities would deal a massive economic blow to them.
In summary, there is no evidence, nor is it plausible that it is the Ukrainian/Western side keeping the war going. This argument also unjustly removes blame from the Russian side. Not only did they start the war, but they have also rejected peace at every turn, even as recently as December 2025 (9) and January 2026 (10).
Sources
Claim 7: Ukraine can't win
Claim:
Ukraine can't win a war against Russia. It has nuclear weapons and a larger population. All the aid that Ukraine has gotten from Western countries has brought it no step closer to a final peace, and their situation will deteriorate over time. The best option for them is to cut a dirty deal now to prevent a worse outcome later.
Counterclaim
The easiest question to ask is "What does "win" mean?". Sure, Ukraine will most likely not be able to militarily reclaim the entirety of its territory but who says that that is required? We'll come back to it once we address the other points.
Neither nukes nor larger populations win wars, particularly when you're on the offensive side of things. An advancing army usually requires a larger amount of manpower than the defending side, which can cancel out that Russian advantage. Russia also has large parts of the population that it cannot touch because it would endanger regime security, while the Ukrainian population is broadly in agreement with its defensive war.
Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons countless times but never actually followed through, precisely because they know that would breach a red line. They would face the wrath of the whole world, as even China has made clear that it would strongly oppose Russia in that case (1a). The threat level this presents is so enormous that nuclear weapons will not be used in the war, barring some extremely unlikely circumstances.
As for Western aid, it has helped Ukraine tremendously. Without it, the country would have already collapsed. Beyond that, it has significantly degraded Russian military capabilities, its economy and caused innumerable manpower losses (1).
However, it is also important to emphasize how the Ukrainians themselves have innovated and bled for these achievements. Despite all the odds, they have repelled a far larger military, knocked out the black sea navy (2) and destroyed around 20 percent of Russia's strategic bombers (3).
If the war stays on this path, it is plausible that Ukraine will "win", in the sense of securing their sovereignty and security in the long term. Russia cannot sustain the amount of harm that it is currently facing, and sooner or later they will be forced to make the necessary concessions. Without that pressure, Ukraine will not be able to achieve its sovereignty and security in any negotiations, as evidenced by previous diplomatic efforts (see above).
Sources
Claim 8: Zelensky is a corrupt and illegitimate tyrant
Claim:
Zelensky has been president beyond his appropriate term and isn't legitimized by the Ukrainian people anymore. He does everything to cling to power and secure his wealth which he made through corruption. Under his leadership, Ukraine has deteriorated further into a corrupt police state kidnapping young men to send them to the frontlines.
Counterclaim
The Ukrainian constitution explicitly prohibits the holding of elections during wartime and legitimizes the president staying in office (1). Under president Zelensky, corruption in Ukraine has decreased, not increased (2) and he has bowed to public pressure to keep Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies strong (3).
As for the conscription, it is necessary to keep up a military during times of war. Sometimes, local authorities can overstep (4), but this isn't an official policy associated with the national government, and is indeed punished by it (5,6).