A woman stands in front of a damaged building in Kurakhove, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, November 26, 2014
It is a prominent line by the Kremlin to justify its invasion of Ukraine. It is shouted by Russian commentators on international outlets, and parroted by pro-Kremlin activists in other countries.
The Ukrainian military killed 14,000 civilians in Russian proxy areas of eastern Ukraine since 2014, they say.
Except it’s not true. Not even close.
Posting on his site, Michael Karadjis dissects the disinformation with the reality of facts, using sources such as the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
First, while more than 14,000 people were slain in the fighting in the Donbas region — almost all of them in the months after the Russian proxy occupation of areas in 2014 — 4,400 were Ukrainian troops and 6,500 were Russian proxy fighters.
So the civilian deaths are 3,404, not “14,000”. And these civilians, in an area where ethnic Ukrainians make up 58% of the population, were casualties of both sides in the conflict — Russian proxy forces and the Ukrainian military.
Karadjis summarizes that after a ceasefire in mid-2015, there were only 260 civilian fatalities from 2016 to 2020. Of these, at least 108 were from landmines.
There were 16 fatalities in all of 2021. And in 2022, up to the Russian invasion on February 24, no civilians were killed.
Since then, tens of thousands of civilians have perished across Ukraine.
Almost all were killed or died at the hands of Russian forces.
Whilst I don’t doubt that Scott Lucas is well-intentioned, I do wonder if he’s been completely taken in by the EU and UN anti-Russian propaganda machine. Although I can’t recover all the references, I’ve seen and heard so much information on this war, including a documentary on either Channel 4 or 5 in the UK, about 10 years ago, that highlighted the unsolicited missile attacks by the Ukrainian military on the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. I have also personally known a few Ukrainians. They have said that the speaking of Russian was criminalised – a thoroughly deplorable law. They have also pointed out that these people regard themselves as Russian not Ukrainian and many of them have family members and friends over the border in Russia. The only fair resolution to this war is to do what was AGREED between Lavrov and Zelensky in March 2022, and scuppered by Boris Johnson(!), ie to do the fair and decent thing and to annex the Donbas to Russia!!
Andy,
I suspect by “unsolicited missile attacks by the Ukrainian military on the ethnic Russians”, you are referring to the fighting in eastern Ukraine when Russian-supported separatists and Moscow’s special forces tried to split the country. I would be interested in any evidence you can find of deliberate Ukrainian strikes on civilian areas.
While I note your anecdotal claim, the speaking of Russian and expression of Russian culture are *not* criminalized in Ukraine. Zelensky is a native Russian speaker and only learned Ukrainian after he established a career in television and film. Again, any actual evidence of “criminalizing” Russian identity — a long-standing assertion of the Kremlin — would be welcome.
There was no agreement between Lavrov and Zelensky in March 2022. There was a potential agreement coming out of the Istanbul talks from late March, but this was not scuppered by Boris Johnson but by new demands made by the Kremlin in mid-April.
And, personally, I don’t think seizing part of a sovereign country and handing it to another is “fair and decent”. Perhaps more to the point, it is against international law.
S.