Fugitive Yanukovych resurfaces in video pushing Kremlin lies on NATO and EU

In the address, Yanukovych falsely claimed that during his presidency he “worked purposefully to bring Ukraine closer to the EU,” but that Europeans, in his words, acted “to put it mildly, improperly.”

He also insisted he had always been categorically opposed to Ukraine’s NATO membership, repeating Russian propaganda lines that it “would have been a catastrophe for Ukraine” and “a road to civil war.”

Ukrainian journalist Denys Kazanskyi, commenting on Yanukovych’s statements, stressed the lie about his NATO stance. During his presidency, Yanukovych had said that the course toward NATO remained Ukraine’s goal.

“I don’t understand what Putin is hoping for by dragging out this scarecrow. So everyone just remembers again what a fool he is and laughs? But what’s good here is that if they keep pulling Yanukovych out of mothballs 11 years later, it means Moscow is in a total crisis of ideas. Helplessness. There’s nothing else, no new tools or concepts. Only this disgrace,” Kazanskyi said.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has repeatedly declared Ukraine’s NATO accession “unacceptable,” presenting it as one of Moscow’s ultimatums for ending its war against Ukraine. He has complained that Russia was “deceived” over promises about NATO’s eastward expansion.

On Sept. 1, the Russian dictator, speaking at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China, again spread disinformation about the causes of Russia’s war against Ukraine. He falsely claimed the war was not triggered by Russia’s invasion but by a “coup in Kyiv provoked by the West” in 2014 — his term for the Revolution of Dignity.