This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Last week Kiev university students released an impassioned video appeal to their Russian counterparts urging them to question the ‘rampant Kremlin propaganda’ they say is fuelling the conflict in eastern Ukraine

Now, they have received a reply from a pro-Kremlin youth group known as “Set” or “Network” – a revamped version of the defunct “Nashi” that was founded in 2005 – defending Russia and its role in the Ukraine conflict.



The group say they are members of Network from Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. They posted their message in a video which directly mirrors the format of the original: individuals talk to the camera one by one against a snowy backdrop and an emotive soundtrack.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Russian students have filmed a video response to their Ukrainian peers

The video is titled “Russian students have filmed a video response to their Ukrainian peers” but it is not clear whether the people in the video are students or activists.



They are careful to say only that they are speaking “on behalf of” local universities. The rector of Kaliningrad State Technical University has been cited by local media as saying the people who appear in the film are not current students.

The university did not respond to request for comment from RFE/RL.

The message in their video closely follows the Kremlin line: it describes Ukraine’s pro-European Euromaidan protests as a “coup”; decries the ousting of former president Viktor Yanukovych and defends Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea.

Russia is the only country fighting for democracy

It doesn’t comment on the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine, which the Kremlin denies, but maintains that the west is imposing sanctions on Moscow because Russia is the “only country fighting for democracy.”

“We have heard you,” begins the first speaker, as fellow activists stand in the background holding a blue banner emblazoned with the Network logo.



“There is a civil war in your country. Ordinary citizens are dying – children, old people, women. You ask us to lift the information curtain. Let’s do it together so that no one has any doubt.”



The next activist reiterates claims of a strong neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine, pointing to Right Sector, a marginal ultranationalist group, and “Banderovtsi,” referring to followers of Stepan Bandera, a controversial figure who is said to have collaborated with the Nazis during the second world war in an attempt to create an independent Ukrainian state.

You ask us to lift the information curtain. Let’s do it together so that no one has any doubt

The activist then mentions a fire at the Odessa trade union building in May last year which killed dozens after chaotic street battles.

“Our forebears never lost historical ties,” the activist says. “We were and will be brotherly nations. Nothing can break our blood ties. You say that Banderovtsi, Right Sector, Nazis are fairy tales. But do you really think that the victims of Maidan, the trade union building in Odessa, and the bombed cities of Donbass are fairy tales?”

“Do you think these are all smoke screens? Please, brothers, reflect on this”, they ask.

“A year ago, an unconstitutional coup took place,” begins the next activist. “You call Viktor Yanukovych, the president elected by the people, a dictator who usurped power.”

“You talk of total outrage at the same time as thieves and criminals are in the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] and the country is headed by an oligarch who was once in Yanukoyvch’s team,” a reference to Ukraine’s current President Petro Poroshenko, the owner of Ukraine’s biggest chocolate manufacturer who held ministerial positions in previous governments.

'Doubt everything' – Ukrainian students' warning to Russian counterparts Read more

One activist claims Crimea would have gone the same way as war-torn Donbass had it not been for Russia’s “polite people” – a slang term for the soldiers without insignia who seized control of the peninsula last February.

“This bloody chaos created by those who seized power in Kiev also awaited the residents of Crimea. But they didn’t want that fate and they held a democratic election under the protection of polite people.”

Some of Network’s activists are former members of Nashi’s militant wing “Stal,” which became infamous for performing stunts such as displaying an exhibition of effigies of human rights activists impaled on spikes.

Last year, the group painted a series of pro-Kremlin murals in Russian cities to laud the annexation of Crimea. They also made a teaching prop to help children learn the alphabet, which was effusive in its praise of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In the book, A was for Anti-Maidan; B for Berkut – the now disbanded Ukrainian riot police used against Euromaidan protesters – and P for Putin.

A version of this article first appeared on RFE/RL