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.