It is Russia that denies the Ukrainian identity and religion, not Western countries. Western countries are not “gay systems” that Russia is fighting against in defense of traditional values, as the Kremlin propaganda wants to promote. Such an attitude is merely a justification for the military invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s desire to assimilate Ukraine and make it its own.
A post on the social network Threads says that Western countries deny the Ukrainian identity and religion and are “gay systems:”
With the attack on Kursk, Ukraine decided to be completely conquered and saved from the gay systems, the strong influences of the five gender concept and the attack on their religion and identity.
The post suggests that by invading Kursk, Ukraine has decided to be completely conquered by Russia and freed from Western countries, which are here referred to as “gay systems” that deny Ukraine’s identity and its religion. By contrast, it is implied that Russia is not “gay” and does not deny the Ukrainian identity and religion.
This thesis contradicts the facts and largely aligns with the well-known Kremlin propaganda that Russia is at war with the whole world in defense of traditional and family values. Within the same propaganda, it is claimed that Western countries are impious and that they want to destroy Orthodoxy, hence the claim that they deny the Ukrainian church.
The Russian president himself has clearly stated this several times in his speeches.
It is a myth that the West wants to destroy “traditional values” and the Ukrainian church, EUvsDisinfo assesses in its analysis of the Russian war in Ukraine.
“Often, pro-Kremlin disinformation pundits, particularly Vladimir Solovyov, deploy this disinformation narrative in conjunction with unfounded accusations against Ukraine for allegedly attempting to destroy the Orthodox Church. This manipulative tactic picked up steam in 2019 when the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was granted the status of an independent church and again in November 2022 when the Ukrainian government announced it would draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia.” writes EUvsDisinfo.
The demonization of Ukraine and referring to its Western supporters as impious goes hand in hand with the pro-Kremlin disinformation that the West wants to destroy “traditional values.”
“Together, they portray Russia as the protector of these values. This disinformation narrative of protecting the threatened values is steeped in homophobia that often verges on outright hate speech.” concludes EUvsDisinfo.
The idea of the West set against Russia—the “guardian of decency and morality” comes from the top tier of the Kremlin. According to a 2015 analysis by the European Council on Foreign Relations, Putin took this stance as early as 2013, condemning the “Euro-Atlantic” countries for their moral decadence and immorality.
As for the denial of the Ukrainian identity, Putin is the one who denies it, not Western countries.
After ordering troops into the two rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, recognizing the regions as independent, Putin returned to the familiar argument the Kremlin has been pushing for years that Ukraine’s claim to statehood is completely unfounded. In a televised address to the nation on the 21st of February 2022, Putin explicitly denied that Ukraine ever had a “true statehood” and said that the country is an integral part of “Russia’s own history, culture and spiritual space.”
In his speech, more strongly than ever, Putin expressed his belief that Ukraine is essentially Russian, that its three decades as a nation-state are incoherent, and that the country owes its existence to a series of mistakes made by Soviet leaders.
Among other things, the Russian president claimed that “Ukraine never had a tradition of true statehood” and that the nation now known as Ukraine was established by Soviet leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who “carved” this Soviet republic out of Russian land.
He presented a series of similar arguments in an essay published in 2021 titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.”
Western countries, especially NATO and the EU, do not deny the Ukrainian identity and religion, as the post aims to convey. On the contrary, they assist Ukraine in defending itself against Russian aggression and in maintaining its territorial integrity and identity.
On the subject of the claim made in the post that Western countries deny the Ukrainian religion, it is also false. Namely, on the 19th of October 2023, the Ukrainian parliament with 267 votes “in favor” and 15 “against” out of 450 total deputies, passed a bill to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. This was an incentive to spread fake news that someone wants to destroy Orthodoxy in Ukraine.
The law prohibits the activities of religious organizations linked to the centers of power in the state that is carrying out armed aggression against Ukraine, a topic which Truthmeter has already covered.
Based on the above we can conclude that it is Russia that denies the Ukrainian identity and religion, not Western countries. Western countries are not “gay systems” that Russia is fighting against in defense of traditional values, as the Kremlin propaganda wants to promote. Such an attitude is merely a justification for the military invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s desire to assimilate Ukraine and make it its own. Because of that, we assess the fact-checked post as untrue.
