Kremlin officials are leveraging narratives about Ukrainian strikes and combat operations in Russian territory to justify rejecting peace negotiations with Ukraine and continuing the war to a domestic Russian audience.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said this in the Russian offensive campaign assessment for March 21, Ukrinform reports.
The Kremlin is weaponizing ongoing ceasefire negotiations and deliberately misrepresenting the status and terms of a future ceasefire agreement in order to delay and undermine negotiations for a settlement to the war.
ISW cites Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s recent remarks, in which he claimed in reaction to the Sudzha gas distribution station fire that Ukraine’s denial of blowing up the station “shows how much one can believe and trust” Ukrainian officials.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked how the United States will “manage” Ukraine given Ukraine’s alleged violation of the moratorium on energy infrastructure strikes.
“Zakharova’s and Peskov’s comments are an effort to revive the narrative that Ukraine is the aggressor in this war, that Ukraine only acts under guidance or pressure from the West, and that the war in Ukraine is an existential risk to the Russian state to which Russia must respond,” ISW analysts said.
Russian authorities have also revived narratives accusing Ukrainian forces of targeting Russian nuclear power plants and committing war crimes against Russian civilians to undermine Ukraine’s credibility and heighten the invented existential threat to domestic audiences.
The Kremlin has pushed these narratives consistently throughout the war in an attempt to distract from Russia’s actions. ISW analysts recalled that Russian forces have committed numerous war crimes on the battlefield and in occupied Ukraine and have endangered the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP (ZNPP) by militarizing it, and a Russian long-range Shahed drone struck the containment structure of the Chornobyl NPP’s Reactor No. 4 on February 14.
“The Kremlin may seek to leverage its narratives falsely portraying Ukraine as recklessly endangering Russian NPPs and being an unsafe operator of the ZNPP to spoil U.S.-Ukrainian bilateral talks, given recent U.S. and Ukrainian official statements about possible U.S. involvement in Ukrainian energy infrastructure, including the Russian-occupied ZNPP,” the report said.
On March 11, delegations from the U.S. and Ukraine met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Ukraine expressed its readiness to accept the U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, provided that Russia adheres to it simultaneously.
On March 13, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow, where he met with President Putin. The Kremlin stated that Putin had conveyed “additional information and signals” to U.S. President Donald Trump through Witkoff.
On Tuesday, March 18, President Trump held a phone conversation with Putin. The White House later announced that Moscow had agreed to a limited ceasefire concerning energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine.
On March 19, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the U.S. administration, Trump reiterated his commitment to achieving lasting peace in Ukraine.
2025-03-22 11:07:00 ,
