Misleading the Masses

The Factual Errors in Reporting the Ukraine War Start Date

July 17, 2024

Updated August 3, 2024

Media outlets worldwide have misled the public about the true start of the Ukraine war. Both right and left-wing media, whether sympathetic to Ukraine or Russia, have overlooked a crucial fact: the war began in 2014, not with the 2022 full-scale invasion.

Recent reports, such as the Fox News report marking a second anniversary and the Al Jazeera reference to the war’s third year, incorrectly suggest that the conflict began in 2022. This oversimplification is misleading and factually incorrect.

While Russia’s 2022 invasion marked a significant escalation, neither the scale nor global perception alters the fact that the war began with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the ensuing hostilities in Eastern Ukraine.

Here’s a clear breakdown of the evidence confirming the 2014 origin of the conflict.

April 17, 2014: Putin acknowledges Russian military involvement in Crimea:

"Of course, the Russian servicemen did back the Crimean self-defence forces."
Putin hints at a limited Russian military operation in Ukraine: "Our task was not to conduct a full-fledged military operation there, but it was to ensure people’s safety and security and a comfortable environment to express their will."

August 27, 2014: Russian military acknowledges Russian troops in Eastern Ukraine but suggests it was an accident:

"These servicemen did indeed participate in patrolling a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border, and crossed it probably by accident at an unequipped and unmarked section."

February 15, 2015: Russia and Ukraine sign the Minsk II Agreement:

"Withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, as well as mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under monitoring of the OSCE. Disarmament of all illegal groups."

December 17, 2015: Putin acknowledges Russian involvement in Donbas:

"We’ve never said there are no people there who deal with certain matters, including in the military area, but this does not mean that regular Russian troops are present there. Feel the difference."

November 29, 2018: U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine acknowledges the war began in 2014:

"For almost five years, Russia has fomented a war that has had more than 10,000 casualties."

April 20, 2019: Presidential Debate:

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko acknowledges the ongoing war: "An actor can’t wage a war against Russia."

May 20, 2019: President Zelensky Inaugural Address:

"Our first task is ceasefire in the Donbas."
"We are not the ones who have started this war."

September 21, 2022: Zelensky addresses the United Nations:

"But Russia – instead of stopping the crime of aggression, which it started back in 2014 – turned it into a full-scale invasion."

Russia and Ukraine have both acknowledged involvement in the conflict since 2014, and the evidence firmly establishes that the war started in 2014. Moreover, despite various ceasefire attempts, the war has been continuous since 2014, with over 400,000 ceasefire violations in 2019 and 2020 alone. Thus, it is factually incorrect to say that the war began in 2022.

Numerous media outlets that now declare the war started in 2022 have previously acknowledged the 2014 origin of the war. For example, on February 1, 2022, Al Jazeera reported that the “war was sparked in 2014.” On October 14, 2019, the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times reported that “Zelensky sought to improve his patriotic credentials by visiting Ukrainian troops on the front line of the five-year conflict.”

Despite previously acknowledging the war’s start in 2014, the Los Angeles Times contradicted itself on February 24, 2024. The newspaper published an article falsely claiming that “the war against Russia enters its third year” while including a photo of Ukraine’s memorial wall that displayed the war’s 2014 start date.

The evidence demonstrates that Russia and Ukraine both acknowledged their involvement in the war before 2022, definitively establishing that Russia’s 2022 escalation did not start an entirely new war. Inattentive journalists, however, failed to consider whether the escalation initiated a new war as they carelessly “rallied around the flag.”

Perhaps most embarrassingly, the Toronto Star published an article titled “Two years in, Ukraine-Russia conflict brings hard choices, fractured families,” which corrected its own mistake: “the war is not really two years old but an extension of the conflict that began in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.”

A handful of journalists have correctly reported the facts since the 2022 invasion caused journalists to about-face and disregard their prior research. PBS NewsHour, for example, reported on February 22, 2024, that “This Saturday marks two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a war that started nearly ten years ago.”

Nonetheless, the systemic journalistic oversight is embarrassing. Media outlets, governments, and think tanks reporting the factually incorrect start date include but are not limited to:

7News Australia: February 23, 2024: “Ukraine’s Two Years of War”
Al Jazeera: February 23, 2024: “the war in Ukraine enters its third year”
AFP: February 22, 2024: “On the 24th of February of 2022, Russian forces entered Ukraine, launching the biggest war in Europe since World War II”
Associated Press: February 23, 2024: “the war enters its third year”
Australian Security Magazine: February 23, 2024: “Second anniversary of Ukraine war”
BBC: February 22, 2024: “Ukraine marks the second anniversary of the war”
Canberra Times: February 23, 2024: “two year anniversary in war with Russia”
CBC News: February 25, 2024: “the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine”
CBS News: February 24, 2024: “War in Ukraine began two years ago”
CNN: February 27, 2024: “Two years of war”
Clarín: February 23, 2024: "Two years of war"
Council on Foreign Relations: February 20, 2024: “The Two Year Anniversary of the War in Ukraine”
EuroNews: February 24, 2024: “Two years of war”
France 24: March 16, 2024: “After two years of war”
Fox News: February 24, 2024: “It was exactly two years ago today that the war in Ukraine here started”
The Globe and Mail: March 28, 2024: “Two years into Russia's war with Ukraine”
Government of the Netherlands: March 21, 2024: “Two years of war in Ukraine”
The Guardian: February 21, 2024: “Two years of war in Ukraine”
The Independent: February 24, 2024: “Two years of war in Ukraine”
Los Angeles Times: February 24, 2024: “the war against Russia enters its third year”
Le Monde: February 24, 2023: “Russia Ukraine war one year anniversary”
El Mundo: February 25, 2024: “two years of combat”
National Post: February 21, 2024: “Ukraine after two years of war”
NewsMax: February 13, 2023: "Russia-Ukraine War Enters Year 2"
NPR: February 24, 2024: “the war in Ukraine enters its third year”
El País: February 23, 2024: “Saturday, February 24, marks the two-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of a war that is still raging 24 months later.”
Reuters: February 23, 2024: “As the war in Ukraine enters its third year”
RTVE: February 24, 2024: “Two years of war in Ukraine”
Sky News: February 24, 2024: “After two years of war”
The Sydney Morning Herald: February 23, 2024: “we reach the two-year mark of Putin’s war”
The Telegraph: February 24, 2024: “the war entered a third year”
Toronto Star: February 24, 2024: “Two years in, Ukraine-Russia conflict brings hard choices”
United States Institute of Peace: February 27, 2024: “Two Years In: Analyzing the War in Ukraine”
El Universal: February 23, 2024: "The war in Ukraine reaches two years"
VICE News: February 24, 2023: “One Year of War in Ukraine”
Voice of America: February 20, 2024: “two years of Russia’s war against Ukraine”
Wall Street Journal: February 24, 2024: “War’s Second Anniversary”
Washington Post: February 23, 2024: “Two years of war in Ukraine”

The complexity of the conflict demands meticulous journalism, not oversimplification and disregard for critical facts. The widespread belief that the war began in 2022 underscores the gravity of this journalistic oversight.

Beyond embodying an alarming deterioration of integrity and vigor, the factually incorrect narrative that the war began in 2022 impedes the public’s ability to effectively self-govern. Unaware of when the war started, the public stands no chance of understanding the true causes of this conflict, why it continues costing thousands of lives, or how to make peace.

While the war officially began in 2014, discontent erupted in late 2013 when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected an association agreement with the European Union, opting to strengthen ties with Russia through the Eurasian Customs Union.

This decision led to mass protests in Kyiv and across Ukraine, known as the Euromaidan protests. Broader frustrations over systemic corruption and demands for democratic reforms also fueled these protests. The government’s violent crackdown on protesters intensified public outrage, and amidst the turmoil, President Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014.

An interim government took over and immediately moved to pass a bill that would have revoked legal recognition for the Russian language. Although the acting president vetoed the bill, Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, felt threatened.

Moreover, Western leaders like U.S. Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy joined the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv, helping to give Russia the impression that Euromaidan was a Western-backed coup. Their presence wasn't the decisive factor in Russia's reaction but solidified Russia’s belief that Western politicians seek to sow anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine.

In response to what it saw as a coup and threats against ethnic Russians in Crimea and the Donbas region, Russia deployed its military to annex Crimea. Russian forces then organized a controversial and internationally unrecognized referendum to justify their annexation.

While Ukraine presents the Euromaidan protests as a “Revolution of Dignity,” many Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine felt threatened and disagreed with the outcome. With help from the Russian government, separatists in Eastern Ukraine tried to reverse the result of Euromaidan by replacing local leaders with those sympathetic to Russia.

Within weeks, competing protests in the Donbas erupted into war between various local groups, Ukrainian authorities, and a variety of separatists, which Russia armed and supported. Ten years later, the front line shifted roughly 13 kilometers in some areas around Donetsk Airport, according to information from the Institute for the Study of War.

The microscopic 13-kilometer change over a decade highlights the stagnant nature of this war. Still, the reality has been lost on the public as listless journalists oversimplify the story and disregard its origin.

While the war in Ukraine escalated dramatically in 2022 and entered a far more deadly phase, it is factually incorrect to state that the war began in 2022. Neither Ukraine nor Russia deny this reality, but neither cares to correct the false narrative as each seeks the upper hand in the information war. Thus, the decade-long conflict persists and continues to bring devastation, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced, and widespread destruction.

The public must accurately understand the timeline of the Ukraine war to grasp its underlying causes and work toward resolution. The truth is clear: the war began in 2014. With this truth, peace becomes possible.