Ukrainian forces have invaded Russia’s Kursk region, and a Facebook post makes false claims that they are Western cannon fodder that aims to usurp Russia’s natural resources. However, the fact that Russia committed aggression against Ukraine is hushed up, and so, Ukraine has every right to defend itself and even transfer the war to the enemy’s territory, as the Russians themselves have done in their history
A Facebook post begins with the following words:
Early this morning, Ukraine is massively bombed, and NATO did not bat an eyelid in the antiaircraft defense, while before that, NATO helped Ukraine as much as possible to enter Kursk on Russian territory. Don’t Ukrainians see that they are cannon fodder for a fascist ideology and are used as repro material towards the ultimate goal: exploitation of the resources of the Ukrainian fertile land and the Siberian natural treasures?
First, no one wanted to seize territories from Russia, rather, it was Russia that engaged in such actions against Ukrainians, so it is absurd to present it as some kind of victim of aggression.
Second, if the Russians marched into Paris, entering the “heartland” of Napoleon in 1814 and the “heartland” of Hitler in Berlin in 1945, Ukrainians are also allowed to enter Russia as they are now doing in Kursk region. They enter the territory of an aggressor state in order to protect themselves from aggression. To be precise, the goal is to reduce the range of long-range missiles that Russia launches on Ukrainian territory, often and intentionally causing civilian casualties in order to terrorize the Ukrainian population. Moreover, it is done for the purpose of self-defense for the territories that are under threat from the Russian aggression, i.e. it is an attempt to force Russia to transfer part of the occupying and aggressor forces from Ukraine to its own territory.
Thirdly, the post does not provide any proof that NATO helped that incursion, and no such information about that can be found in global media outlets. On the contrary, the West was surprised by the incursion, and the US stated that it was not informed of the plan and was not involved in it.
If they had known about it, they probably would not support it. Since Russia is a nuclear power, the West pursues an extremely cautious policy towards it, so it is unlikely that it would support or want to create the perception that it is involved (even indirectly) in an extremely risky incursion into its territory.
What’s more, that incursion has nothing to do with any usurpation of the Siberian natural resources, which, by the way, Russia usurped from the Siberian people, whom they subjugated during the imperial times: the Yakuts, the Buryats, the Nenets and others. However, that is another subject. In any case, Siberia is several thousand kilometers away from those combat actions, and the Ukrainians neither can, nor want to conquer it.
The Ukrainian-Russian conflict goes back centuries, stopping and starting again throughout history, with its beginnings dating back to before the rise of fascism or the creation of the NATO pact. Without tracing back to the 17th and 18th century, it would be enough to recall the events of the 20th century, when during the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Ukraine briefly became independent as the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR). But then, it was attacked by Soviet Russia led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He stifled the independence of the Ukrainian National Republic and created a puppet state, Soviet Ukraine, which in 1922 was forcibly included in the Soviet Union (USSR). In Soviet Ukraine, there are well-documented instances of mass starvation due to the collectivization in the 1930s (the so-called Holodomor (Ukrainian Famine)) and the Stalinist purges of the intelligentsia (the so-called Executed Renaissance).
Despite all this, the author of the post still considers Ukrainians to be manipulated by some “fascist ideology.” Ironically, the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish, and with a bill passed on the 9th of April, 2015, Nazi ideology and symbolism were banned. It is also ironic that Russian neo-Nazis such as Anton Raevsky or Alexey Milchakov with the Rusich Group are fighting against Ukraine.
The post goes on to quote German World War II criminal Jürgen Stroop, in an attempt to draw a parallel between the Nazis and NATO, which is ultimately an unsuccessful attempt. In the quotes, Stroop talks about how the Nazis wanted to dumb down the Ukrainians so that they could not read and become slaves more easily. However, ironically, what was quoted is reminiscent of the current Russian occupation of Ukraine, which includes burning books in the Ukrainian language and similar measures to destroy Ukrainian identity.
The post also claims that Stroop “managed Ukraine on behalf of Hitler”, but that is incorrect. He held high positions in occupied Ukraine, which, on the other hand, was not a single occupation zone at the time, nor was Stroop in charge of it. The Nazis divided it into several occupation zones such as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (headed by Erich Koch) and the District of Galicia (headed by Karl Lasch and then by Otto Wächter), however, Stroop did not manage any of them.
In short, the post contains many inaccuracies, so we assess it as false.
