Perspectief 2019-44

Perspectief 110 MH17 – the Ukrainian Context Along with blaming the Ukrainians for the MH17 tragedy, the Russian media fabricated other “news.” Thus, the popular Russian TV Channel First showed a woman who claimed that she saw how the Ukrainian military crucified a six year old boy at a bulletin board. Needless to say that this news was never proved. It even turned out that this woman never visited Sloviansk. However absurd have been the news propagated by the Russian media, they worked to incur hatred among the Russians against the Ukrainians and to justify the war in their eyes. These news were also effective in the West, however in a different way. In the West, people are accustomed to seek truth somewhere between two interpretations of the same events. The Russian propagandists used this western custom to read news. They realized that the further they place their own interpretation of events from truth, the further from the same truth will be the middle point that the people in the West are likely to embrace. This is how the Russian defamation campaign against Ukraine worked in the West. A re- markable case of its impact was the Dutch referendum held on April 6, 2016. It was initiated to ask the public opinion in the Netherlands on the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. This was the agreement that President Yanukovych refused to sign and thus triggered the Revolution of dignity. After the victory of the Euromaidan, both Ukraine and the European Union agreed to signing it. Before that, however, national parliaments of the EU countries had to ratify it. All EU countries did it except the Netherlands. In this country, the government called for an advisory referendum after it was supported by sufficient number of requests. The ques- tion that the Dutch had to answer was as follows: “Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?” Even though the turn out for the referendum was only 32%, the threshold to make it eligible was met. The majority of those who voted were against the Association Agreement. They thus seri- ously impeded the process, which became central for the Revolution of dignity. According to some interpretations, the Dutch public made their decision under the influ- ence of the defamation campaign launched by Russia, as many believed that the Ukrainians were to blame for the MH17 catastrophe. It was also an early manifestation of anti-immigration attitude that soon engulfed many countries of the European Union.