Fact Checking the fact checkers at Sky News on Trump and Ukraine
- classicrecords1
- Feb 21
- 4 min read
SKY “Mr Trump did not give an indication of where he obtained his 4% figure for Mr Zelenskyy's approval rating.”
ME. Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Dubinsky conducted a vote on his channel: "if there are elections tomorrow, who will you vote for?"
There were two candidates. Zelensky and... a mop. The mop won a resounding victory, gaining 97% of the votes. Zelensky got only 3%. And this is even less than the 4% that Trump is talking about.
SKY “Official polling is limited due to the war, however the Ukraine-based Kyiv International Institute of Sociology has conducted a survey which found the Ukrainian president had a 57% "trust" rating as of February 2025.”
ME. The private polling company, "Kiev institute of sociology" which Western media quotes as source of Zelenskys "57%" popularity, is owned and operated by a Zelensky ally and State employee (at the National Univeristy of Kiev) Volodymyr Paniotto.
It's also indirectly funded by USAID, NED and Soros foundations.
"The Kiev institute" counts German State media, @dwnews, Radio Free Europe, the OSCE and other EU and US NGO funded media as "Clients".
The actual question asked of 2,000 Ukrainians living in a police state, bereft of elections, with citizens being dragged off the streets by Zelensky's government was "Do you support President Zelensky?"
The respondents were called personally on their mobile phones by the "institute".
The owner and President of the "Institute" Volodymyr Paniotto is a dedicated supporter of Zelensky and the Euro Maidan movement behind the illegal Coup in 2014, he regularly writes for publications like "Global Dialogue".
Guess who funds "Charity" Global Dialogue?
Klaus Schwab
National Endowment for Democracy (CIA)
And Soros' Open Democracy.
The "Independent" Kiev institute also supplies services to pro Zelensky media and radio, pro Zelensky personalities and channels.
The entire "Institute" being quoted in Western media, some of whom directly fund them, is deeply ingrained into the Zelensky Government and his personally owned channels.
SKY “Since 2014, Russia has twice invaded and annexed territory belonging to Ukraine.”
ME. Russia was invited in by the republics of the DPR and LPR, they didn’t “invade”.
SKY “Five days before Russian troops rolled into Ukraine in 2022, and with Russian troops amassing at the borders”.
ME. The massive build up of Ukrainian troops intending to invade the Donbass and possibly into Russia came first. Russia moved it’s troops to the border to protect the Donbass and any incursion on to Russian soil.
SKY “The origins of Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine date back to 2014 and what is known as the Maidan Revolution, the Ukrainian Revolution, or sometimes the Revolution of Dignity.”
ME. It was a violent, bloody coup by Banderites, neoNazis, paramilitaries and ultranationalists.
SKY “Then-president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted following months of protests over his government's decision to reject closer ties with Europe in favour of building closer relations with Moscow.”
ME. Something we can agree on.
SKY “Russia labelled this a "coup" and accused the West of orchestrating it. Moscow also railed against the idea that Ukraine's now Western-facing government might one day join NATO.”
ME. It most definitely was a US backed coup as agreed by many Western geopolitical analysts.
SKY “In response to the revolution, pro-Russian, and Moscow-backed, separatists seized government buildings in eastern areas of the country, while Russia sent its own troops and annexed Crimea in March 2014 - in violation of international law.”
ME. Ethnic Russians in the Donbass were protecting their regions from genocide.
Crimeans themselves overwhelmingly desired for Crimea to leave Ukraine. An official 1994 referendum found that nearly 80 percent of Crimeans desired greater regional autonomy.
Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea (by military personnel already stationed there for their Black Sea fleet, no Russian troops needed to be sent as they have been there by agreement for decades) was more of a “reunification” and was with a 96% approval rating by the 1.5 million people of Crimea in a referendum. They needed the 2014 vote as they saw the rise of the ultranationalists and neo-Nazis after the US led Maidan coup and the persecution of ethnic Russians in the east and south of Ukraine.
SKY “Despite attempts to negotiate an end to that conflict, it continued until February 2022, when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
ME. The 2014 Minsk Agreement was indeed a ploy to buy Ukraine time and should be credited for Kiev’s “successful resilience” now, former French president Francois Hollande said on Friday 30th December 2022. Confirming former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s assessment of the truce, Hollande also blamed US weakness for the failure to deter Russia. Earlier this month, Merkel described Minsk as “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its military. Speaking with the Kyiv Independent, a pro-government Ukrainian outlet, Hollande agreed, saying Merkel was “right on this point.” “Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture. Indeed, the Ukrainian army was completely different from that of 2014. It was better trained and equipped. It is the merit of the Minsk agreements to have given the Ukrainian army this opportunity,” Hollande said, adding that it also stopped the advance of Donbass “separatists” on Mariupol.
FULL SCALE INVASION is a Western trope. Russia didn’t declare war or invade west of the Dnieper River. There was no Russian conscription, and it was a low key special military operation.
SKY “At the time, and still today, Moscow claimed it was conducting a "special military operation" in eastern Ukraine - but Russian troops also attacked from the north towards the capital Kyiv before retreating.”
ME. They surrounded Kiev to temporarily stop reinforcements to the Donbass and to persuade Zelensky to negotiate. His US handlers told him not to negotiate so Russia withdrew from Kiev. They did not “retreat”. It started first as a delaying tactic to stop Ukrainian reinforcements, then Putin withdrew the troops from Kiev as a sign of goodwill for the negotiations which Ukraine reneged on.
SKY “Russia announced the annexation of four eastern areas of Ukraine in 2022 - an action which has been widely rejected by the international community.”
ME. All four areas were given a referendum with a huge majority wanting to be part of Russia.
It may have been widely rejected by the Western “international community” (bullied by the US) but Russia has huge support from the Global South whose population exceeds that of the West.
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