Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 28/2/2024; Author: Amar Karađuz
A manipulative excerpt of Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement is being shared as evidence that Ukraine was planning an offensive in the breakaway region of Donbas as early as 2019 and that it is therefore “guilty” of the Russian invasion in 2022.
On February 21, 2025, a video was shared on Telegram in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is speaking in front of a group of people. The description of the post claims that he admitted in 2019 that Ukraine had planned an “invasion” of Donbas, the eastern part of Ukraine where the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics were located at that time.
Zelensky admitted in 2019 that Ukraine had planned an INVASION OF DONBAS
We are going to war. Our army is ready. We will fight in Donbas.
Those who say Ukraine is a helpless victim that was attacked are LIARS.
Ukraine is a crazy genocidal state that needs to be stopped.
The video, which has English subtitles, shows Zelensky saying the following:
From this day, we have a military state, we are at war. We will go to war. Our army is ready. We will fight with Donbas. We will reclaim our territories through war, with the army. We do not care how many people will die, but we are ready to return, to take back our land. We are ready for direct military action on the occupied territories.
In addition to Telegram, the video of Zelensky and the claim about a planned “invasion” of Donbas were also posted on Facebook.
What are the facts?
The video featuring Volodymyr Zelensky has been manipulatively edited to make it seem as though he is talking about a plan for a Ukrainian military offensive in the separatist Donbas region. This manipulation was reported by the Georgian fact-checking platform Myth Detector. The video is a part of a multi-hour press conference held by Zelensky, then newly elected president, on October 10, 2019, at a market in Kyiv (1, 2). According to Myth Detector, a journalist asked Zelensky about the conflict in Donbas, which had started in 2014, noting that he was acting like his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, who had been reluctant to call the war by its real name or declare a state of war.
The journalist asked Zelensky whether it would be better for Ukraine to declare a state of war. In his response, Zelensky emphasized that the people of Ukraine had not elected a president who, upon taking office, would declare war and a state of war. Zelensky actually rejected the possibility of an offensive in Donbas and the start of the war, but the Telegram video does not include this part of his answer.
In full context, he emphasized that he was not ready to sacrifice people’s lives and that, instead, he wanted to find a diplomatic solution.
I came [to power] as a president of peace; I want to end the war. Today, for the first time, you don’t understand that society is the most important thing to me. You and I understand that we are human beings, and the community is what matters the most. The public did not vote for a president who would come and say that from today we are at war, that we are at war, that we will fight, and that our army is ready; that we will start a war in Donbas, that we will reclaim our territories through war and with the army, that we do not care how many people will die, but we are ready to take back our land, we are ready for direct military action on the occupied territories. If you think that way, then we should invade Crimea, even though our army is not ready. I, as president, am not ready to sacrifice our people, so I choose the diplomatic path.
The edited statements, presented out of context, have been shared as “proof” of the justification for Russia’s invasion in 2022 and the annexation of the self-declared republics in Donbas. One of the reasons for launching the “special military operation” in Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned on February 24, 2022, was “the protection of people who had been subjected to persecution and genocide for the last eight years” in Donbas. Therefore, Zelensky’s statement was supposed to be another indicator of the policy Ukraine had towards that region.
However, earlier we encountered falsified evidence of Ukrainian plans to attack territories that were under the control of pro-Russian separatist local authorities even before 2022. In the first year after the start of the Russian invasion, a false claim circulated stating that medals had been found in Ukraine that were supposed to be awarded to Ukrainian soldiers for “taking Crimea”. That year, dozens of media outlets presented as facts the claims of Russian institutions that soldiers from this country had found evidence that Kyiv planned an offensive in Donbas in March 2022.
The war against Ukraine has lasted for more than three years. The narrative of Ukraine being responsible for the Russian invasion, which is reflected in the analyzed posts, is increasingly present in the public discourse, including outside social media. In addition to already existing pro-Russian narratives, this is significantly contributed to by statements from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who even said that Ukraine “shouldn’t have started the war”.
Therefore, the first post claiming that Volodymyr Zelensky admitted in 2019 that Ukraine planned an invasion of Donbas, based on a manipulatively edited video, is assessed as fake news. Other posts of this claim are considered to be the distribution of fake news.
