Illustration: Truthmeter.mk

This article was first published by Truthmeter.mk (North Macedonia), within the framework of Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Project.

It was Russia with its aggression that pushed the Ukrainians into war, not some “shadow rulers”–as the post suggests, adding that “Zelensky is a pawn.” The pawn was the pro-Russian President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, who fled to his masters in Russia and who has been legally convicted of high treason. In contrast, Zelensky has been defending Ukraine for years, even contradicting US President Trump. The post, which is pro-Russian and propagandistic, also gives dubious figures for Ukrainian military losses, and was posted on a Macedonian patriotic Facebook page without any meaning, as if North Macedonia is at war with Ukraine

We analyze a post on the social network Facebook which says:

Ukrainians will fight to the last Ukrainian. At the request of the deep state. They will lose half of Ukraine. 1.7 million Ukrainians died in the war with Russia. Zelensky is a pawn.

Volodymyr Zelensky is not a pawn, but is doing what he swore to do as president–​defend Ukraine. He would be a pawn if he did not defend it and if he fulfilled the wishes of the Russian aggressor.

The pawn was Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to his masters in Russia, who carried out aggression against his country, and who has been legally convicted of high treason.

Zelensky defended Ukraine’s interests even when he was under pressure from the United States. He rejected the first and less favorable version of the agreement with the United States on the exploitation of Ukrainian resources, and on February 28, 2025, he argued quite heatedly with the leader of that superpower, Donald Trump, in the middle of the White House and in front of the entire world public, which would not suit a henchman.

The post is false, pro-Russian, and propagandistic, and it was posted without any meaning on a Macedonian patriotic Facebook page, as if Macedonia was at war with Ukraine.

The term “deep state” in the post is written as “дееп стате,” a phonetic rendering of the English phrase using Macedonian Cyrillic, and it is a conspiracy theory that Ukraine was pushed into war by some “shadow rulers,” for which the post does not offer any sources or evidence, while the reality is as follows.

In February-March 2014, Russia carried out aggression and illegal annexation of Crimea, after which it sent agents like Igor Girkin-Strelkov to tear it away from Ukraine and Donbass.

Thus, on April 7, 2014, the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic emerged, and five days later, Strelkov and his fighters attacked the city of Slavyansk, thus starting the Donbas War. Russia’s regular forces were secretly involved in it, and on February 24, 2022, they launched an open and comprehensive aggression.

Ukrainians are not being pushed into war by some “deep state,” but by Russian aggressive behavior, which they, of course, resist. The post wants to convince us that Ukrainians dream of being slaves to Moscow, but some nefarious “deep state” is not allowing them to do so.

The most tragicomic thing is that sometimes a deep state really does operate, e.g. in Greece (Greek: Παρακράτος) and Turkey (Turkish: Ergenekon), and some believe that the so-called siloviki (former KGB members such as Vladimir Putin) have created something similar to a deep state in Russia, but the post offers no evidence of such a thing in Ukraine.

It does not even offer evidence for the figure of “1.7 million dead Ukrainians.” We have already written where that dubious figure comes from and it is supposedly for dead and missing Ukrainian fighters, and not for dead Ukrainians in general–as the post says, i.e. that is without civilians.

On August 20, 2025, news broke that Russian hackers had obtained this from the databases of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but fact-checkers have been investigating this (see: here and here), and no confirmation of the hacking from an independent source has been found. This is unlikely to change, given that a considerable amount of time has passed since the publication of that dubious news, and no solid evidence has emerged.

That figure was reported by the Russian media outlet Mash, which is not as relevant as, for example, TASS or RIA Novosti, and as far as credibility is concerned, we have no particular reason to trust it. In general, Russian media is notorious for propaganda, which we have written extensively about, and it could not be otherwise under Putin’s authoritarian rule.

Mash referred to alleged statements by the hackers, but all of it remains unverified and dubious. They also published some of the hacked content, but it’s unclear how much of it is authentic and how much may have been altered or “photoshopped.” The content was limited, and it did not contain any major revelations.

The post also claims that Ukrainians will lose half of Ukraine, but the author cannot know this for sure, and judging by Russia’s results so far, the likelihood of that is low.

Russia does not even have full control over the territories it illegally annexed on September 30, 2022, so that annexation is largely only on paper.

Russia never captured Zaporizhzhia, even though it is considered a “city in Russia” by constitution and law. It also failed to capture a good part of the Donetsk Oblast (cities such as Slavyansk and Kramatorsk). It captured Kherson, but lost it on November 11, 2022. It was the only regional center that Russia managed to capture in the full-scale invasion.

Since then, Russia has only occupied small places like Kurakhove, places most of the world couldn’t locate on a map, and only after months or even years of war with enormous casualties. After 11 years of aggression against Ukraine, Russia holds just 20 percent of its territory, a result that hardly befits a superpower.

In August 2024, Russia even lost control of itself, when Ukrainian forces seized part of its Kursk Oblast and held it for as long as 7 months, so how would it control half of Ukraine?

Finally it is not: “Ukrainians will fight to the last Ukrainian”–as in the post, but “The West will fight Russia until the last Ukrainian”–which is the well-known narrative of Russian disinformers, however, this is not the most important thing in the post.

Taking into account everything stated so far, we assess the post as untrue.