The narrative that Ukraine started the war in 2022 or even 2014 is a fabrication of Russian propaganda.
Teanna Sunberg
As someone who has spent more than half her actual life as a missionary in Eastern Europe, I would offer the following insights:
- The narrative that “Ukraine started the war” is one of the main story lines that has been fed to the Russian people by the Russian government to validate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia has consistently wielded this same propaganda strategy for decades. You can trace Russia’s invasion of other post-Soviet countries and find the same manipulation of truth to validate the invasion of sovereign countries to acquire land.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the very reason that anyone in the countries that border Ukraine or even in Europe sounded major alarms in 2022. Poles who flooded the Polish border to help Ukrainians repeatedly explained that, although they felt compassion for Ukrainians, their motivation to help was also one of self-protection. “If Ukraine falls, Poland is next,” they said.
- For those who really want to understand the propaganda strategy, it takes very little effort to research Russia’s strategy of disinformation campaigns or information wars. It is a widespread, well-known and well-documented strategy.
- Republicans have been oddly silent over the last two days to correct Trump’s declaration that Ukraine started the war and that President Zelensky is a dictator. In order to do my own due diligence, I have checked Fox News wondering what they would say. I could find no mention of this on Tuesday or Wednesday. How does such a monumental shift in American geopolitical diplomacy go unmentioned?
However, Mike Pence is speaking out.
As a child of the Cold War, I cannot fathom the current scenario, in which Americans of my generation, regardless of their political affiliation or who they voted for, have not responded with immediate pushback against this obviously false narrative. If the media outlets you listen to did not carry this story, that should be a red flag. If the media outlets you follow begin to excuse or explain and validate this particular Russian narrative, that also should be a red flag.
If you need a refresher on how recent Ukraine-Russian history unfolded, I suggest the following:
In November 2013, Euromaidan was a powerful and courageous uprising of Ukrainian citizens against their president, who was controlled by Putin. It also was an uprising against an obvious impending land-grab by Russia. In late February 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and other parts of Eastern Ukraine.
Winter on Fire is an excellent movie to understand the backstory.
And finally, if you want to know where my interest and knowledge about these events comes from: In February 2022, we were living in Poland and watching the news daily because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seemed imminent. On Feb. 24, Russia invaded Kyiv. Three days later, we were at the Polish side of the border setting up disaster aid response for Ukrainians fleeing the war. We had a consistent and efficient disaster aid response for 18 months. There was absolute clarity for Europeans, for Poles, for Ukrainians and for anti-Russian war Russians and Belorussians that this war was started by Russia as a land-grab (and to accumulate power).
Prior to that, we were missionaries living in Budapest, Hungary, when Euromaidan erupted. Our good friends, who were missionaries in Kyiv, came to stay with us for nearly a month while the events in Ukraine were escalating. Beyond that family, we have many dear Ukrainian friends.
These events, these stories, this history has been the fabric of my life for nearly three decades. Our home has hosted the people who have lived this reality, and we have been hosted by them, in Ukraine, in Poland and across Eastern Europe. I have attached multiple links here that serve, not as information that I have found on the internet, but as the news that parallels the story that I have seen as I have lived in Eastern Europe.
I have posted one of literally hundreds of photos I have taken with my own camera as I was present at the Polish border receiving Ukrainians who were fleeing from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This particular photo was taken at the Medyka land crossing on the Polish side of the border. These are people arriving from Ukraine, being put on a bus and taken into the Polish town of Przemyśl, where they were given aid and help.
I was there. I am a witness.
Teanna Sunberg directs a nonprofit, Mission New York, and leads an initiative for the Metro New York Nazarene District to establish an immigration site in East Harlem. She and her husband, Jay Sunberg, were Nazarene missionaries in Eastern Europe for 29 years. They now minister together in Manhattan to establish a missional presence in their culturally complex and diverse community. She is working on her doctorate at Biola University with a focus on citizen humanitarian presence at the Polish Ukraine border.
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