Pro-Russian outlets in Slovakia and Germany have revived Kremlin narratives that Ukraine is provoking Russia and endangering European civilians. The messaging seeks to recast Moscow’s planned campaign against Ukraine as a defensive response.
Between 25 and 27 August 2026, the Slovak publication Hlavne Spravy and the German outlet Report24 published claims portraying Ukraine’s attacks on Russian military and export-related infrastructure as the cause of subsequent Russian strikes. The coverage has affected the debate over Black Sea shipping, military transport and civilian safety, while helping to justify Russia’s intensified attacks on Ukrainian territory.
Hlavne Spravy carried an article by Juraj Draxler, a pro-Russian political commentator and Slovakia’s former minister of education, science and sport, who served from 2014 to 2016. Draxler argued that attacks on Russian ports and Black Sea export infrastructure had provoked Moscow’s response and damaged Ukraine’s own grain exports by disrupting arrangements intended to protect commercial shipping. His article is available here.
In Germany, Report24 quoted Martin Sichert, an MP from the Alternative for Germany party, who said that transporting military cargo for Ukraine through civilian airports had created additional risks for the German population. His argument was that civilian facilities could thereby become military targets. The report is available here.
Responsibility shifted from aggressor to victim
The central claim in both narratives is that Ukraine is responsible for the escalation and that Russia is being forced into a tougher response. That reverses the basic reality of the conflict. Russia began the unprovoked full-scale war against Ukraine, while Ukraine’s defence forces are exercising the right to self-defence guaranteed by the UN Charter.
Ukrainian strikes on military targets and infrastructure used to support Russia’s aggression are intended to reduce the aggressor state’s military capacity, not to provoke an escalation for its own sake. Presenting those operations as the cause of Russian attacks transfers responsibility from the state that launched the war to the country defending itself.
The messaging has appeared as Russia has substantially intensified its mass missile and drone strikes across Ukraine during August 2026. The attacks have targeted energy infrastructure, civilian logistics and the warehouses of retail companies. Their systematic character points to a Kremlin strategy planned in advance to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure, rather than a series of spontaneous reactions to individual Ukrainian operations.
Russian authorities have sought to justify the strikes by referring to Ukrainian attacks on vessels in Russia’s “shadow fleet” carrying oil, as well as on Wildberries warehouses and military-industrial facilities inside Russia that were being used to meet military needs. Repeating that explanation in European media gives Moscow a ready-made justification for attacks whose scale and targets cannot be reduced to retaliation for a single operation.
Black Sea claims distort the chain of events
The suggestion that Ukraine disrupted the safety of commercial shipping in the Black Sea also reverses the sequence of events. Russia’s aggression, its blockade of Ukrainian ports, the mining of waters and systematic attacks on port infrastructure created the major risks to international shipping and global food security. The wider economic danger posed by disruption in the region has also been highlighted in reporting on the potential impact on Turkish shipping, available here.
Ukraine’s actions in the Black Sea are aimed at weakening Russia’s ability to use its fleet and maritime infrastructure to sustain the war, while creating safer conditions for civilian vessels. To describe them as the source of the region’s insecurity is to obscure the blockade and attacks that made the shipping environment dangerous in the first place.
Fear as a tool against European support
The argument about military cargo moving through European airports relies on a similar form of intimidation. It implies that European governments, rather than Russia, would be responsible for any aggressive response to support for Ukraine, and presents citizens with a false choice: either Europe stops helping Kyiv or its civilian population becomes a target.
In reality, the threat posed by Russia’s use of force creates the security risks facing Europe. Support for a state defending itself does not automatically turn civilian facilities into legitimate military targets. The claim instead encourages Europeans to believe that reducing military assistance would reduce the danger of Russian aggression.
That conclusion could have consequences beyond public opinion. If governments respond to threats and strikes by limiting support for Ukraine, they may weaken Kyiv’s ability to deter the aggressor and signal to the Kremlin that military pressure can influence European foreign policy. The unresolved question is whether European audiences and governments will treat these narratives as warnings about security or recognise them as an attempt to shape decisions through fear.
How should European governments respond when claims about civilian safety are used to argue against support for Ukraine?
