The MAGA conspiracy theorists claiming the Ukraine war isn’t real
Adam Zivo
On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s escalated war in Ukraine, several prominent MAGA influencers are claiming that the war is actually fake. This theory, though absurd and easily refutable, has gained some traction.
On Feb. 24, Catturd, a popular MAGA Twitter account, questioned the existence of the war, tweeting, “We get no footage, no detailed updates, no graphs explaining how the war is going, who has control of what land.” The tweet received over 10 million views and was subsequently shared on Truth Social by disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn said, “I dare anyone to say he is wrong.” Other MAGA influencers soon joined in. For example, Kyle Becker tweeted that the Ukraine war “smacks of a scam.”
What?
Reporting from Ukraine for most of the past year, I have repeatedly shared footage of the war. Indeed, videos and photos of the war are omnipresent online – it takes less than a minute to find them on Google. Much of this material includes grassroots content created by civilians, soldiers, humanitarian workers, and freelance journalists. It makes Russia’s invasion one of the most well-documented wars in history.
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Still, the lies persist.
In some instances, MAGA personalities have misrepresented repaired buildings as evidence of a hoax. For example, Stew Peters shared a video that compares photos of destroyed buildings with footage showing those same buildings intact in real life and then wrote, “Seriously, this entire war is 100% FAKE!” He left out that the video in question was created to celebrate the repairs Ukrainians have made. Peters also tweeted photos of another building which showed that the building was damaged in early 2022 but is now fine. This, apparently, was further evidence that the war is fake. It led to a flood of responses showing ample documentation of the building being repaired.
It’s unclear what motivates these kinds of conspiracy theories. It’s possible that they are motivated simply by stupidity – how else do you describe someone who can’t understand the concept of building repairs? However, it’s also possible that this is an intentional misinformation campaign by activists who want to see a reduction in support for Ukraine.
Mirroring their counterparts on the far-left, many hardcore MAGA activists have fetishized Russia. They have also shown a tendency to bend or ignore the truth to suit their goals. If it turns out that the “Ukraine hoax” theory is an intentional attempt by MAGA activists to undermine U.S. foreign policy, then it will be a sad indictment of the current state of American conservatism.
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Adam Zivo is a Canadian columnist and policy analyst who relocated to Ukraine earlier this year to report on the Russia-Ukraine war. He is writing a book on how the war is experienced by average Ukrainians.