Since 2014, the Donetsk region has become a key point for Russia in all discussions related to Ukraine – up to a full-scale war. The aggression itself was justified by the need to “protect” the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Therefore, during all this time, the Donetsk region was one of the main objects of Russian anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

Already during the full-scale war, the Russian Federation focused its main efforts in propaganda regarding the occupied part of the Donetsk region on praising the successes of the so-called “government of the Donetsk People’s Republic” and on discrediting the Ukrainian government and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In particular, in this campaign, it is often said that the higher military and political leadership of Ukraine is incompetent (as opposed to the leadership of the Russian Federation and the so-called “DPR”), has led the country to decline and external governance, and the socio-economic decline in the Ukrainian-controlled territories of Donetsk region reached its peak. This follows from the analysis of the Center for countering disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.