Inventing a different lie, Russia just showed Ukraine why not to lie
Tom Rogan
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Russia showed Ukraine why it shouldn’t lie on Monday.
In a statement, Russian SVR civilian foreign intelligence service director Sergey Naryshkin claimed there is “reliable [evidence] that the Ukrainian armed forces are storing weapons and ammunition provided by the West [at] nuclear power plants.” Naryshkin offered up the U.S. HIMARS artillery system as an example of weapons being stored.
As with other fictions the SVR invents, this allegation is almost certainly devoid of any factual basis. Ukraine would not risk the civilian casualties and environmental disaster that might result from an explosion at a nuclear site. Nor would Kyiv risk the international ire that would inevitably follow were it to risk a nuclear incident. In contrast, Russian forces continue to use their occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine as a military stronghold along the Dnieper River.
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Instead, Naryshkin’s allegation is likely designed to raise Western fears over an escalation of the conflict. As Russian forces continue to trade major losses for marginal tactical gains, the Kremlin is again dangling nuclear brinkmanship. Vladimir Putin wants Western governments to reduce their military and financial support for Kyiv in fear of pushing Russia into a corner in which Moscow might lash out with its nuclear forces. Naryshkin’s strongest hint at that agenda comes with his concluding comment, “I would like to hope that no one in Kyiv will think of deliberately blowing up [munition warehouses at nuclear sites] in the hope of begging the United States and its allies for even more weapons and ammunition.”
Still, Ukraine should take note of how Naryshkin sought to draw credibility to his conspiracy. He observed that even if any explosion is “the fault of another ‘stray’ Ukrainian air defense missile, then the blame for the tragedy can always be attributed to Moscow.”
This is a reference to a missile that was launched from Ukraine and detonated in Poland, killing two farmers last November. While Ukraine insisted that a Russian rather than Ukrainian missile was to blame, the evidence offers near certainty that a misguided Ukrainian air defense missile was responsible. Yet Ukraine stood fast against the facts. Even President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted he had “no doubts” that a Russian missile was to blame. As I noted at the time, these denials risked jeopardizing Ukraine’s credibility on the international stage and the obvious moral import of its cause.
As with Naryshkin, however, the denials have also blown back by allowing Russia to reference Ukraine’s lack of honesty on one issue to offer Russia the ingredients for an entirely different conspiracy devoid of factual basis. In fine Soviet intelligence tradition, Naryshkin is sprinkling a newly false allegation with elements of a prior truth (namely, that Ukraine was responsible for the November incident but denied being so).
Top line: Ukraine would do far better by admitting where mistakes are made, rather than providing ammunition to Russian fables such as this one. The next time Russia commits an outrage it attempts to pin on Ukraine, Kyiv must be able to deliver its denials with absolute confidence.
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