Most Ukrainians want to join EU despite ongoing Russian disinformation

Russia’s attempts to push narratives that Ukraine’s EU membership prospects are doubtful or will simply make the country the EU’s “agricultural appendage” have largely fallen on deaf ears as Ukrainians remain firmly in favour of EU accession.

In December, Ukraine reached a new milestone in its history when EU leaders decided to start negotiations on its membership.

Ukraine’s path to the EU has taken place amid a war it is waging against Russia, fighting for its European future with the help of its Western allies. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government also has its work cut out as it needs to gradually meet membership requirements.

In mid-January, the European Commission started the screening process, which will assess which Ukrainian laws need to be aligned with the bloc’s current legislation.

Russia nevertheless tries to distract Ukrainians from the idea of joining the European family, instead pushing a narrative of a ‘common past’ when everything was good, with ‘traditional values’ and ‘heroic achievements’.

On the one hand, the idea of Ukraine in the EU is presented by the Russian authorities as something insignificant which they prefer to ignore.

President Vladimir Putin has even stated that they “have never been against it” and that they are more concerned about Ukraine joining military alliances than “economic” ones.

However, as Ukraine’s European integration progressed, the Kremlin’s rhetoric became more aggressive.

In 2023, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov called all of Brussels’ promises to Kyiv “a carrot tied to the front of the cart”, adding that, in his opinion, no real membership was likely.

Moreover, Peskov noted that accepting “a country like Ukraine, regardless of its territorial problems” would “simply undermine the entire system of the European Union”.

To a certain point, this rhetoric is in line with other disinformation narratives spread by Russian media, pro-Russian groups, and various social media channels, as well as pro-Russian politicians in the European Parliament. 

One of the most common messages is that the accession process will remain stuck in endless discussions, and even if accession does happen, it will take 30 years or more.

Similar statements were spread even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which was repeatedly documented by local fact-checking organisations such as StopFake and VoxCheck.

In addition to demoralising messages about the fruitlessness of the EU’s promises, Russian propaganda also actively promotes the idea that Ukraine will face a decline with the EU and “the transformation of an industrialised territory into an agricultural appendage of the European Union”.

At the same time, they claim, the EU itself will not stand for Ukraine’s accession “and as soon as everyone realises the cost of Kyiv’s accession to the bloc, the impracticability of this project will be proven”.

The traditional disinformation narrative of Ukraine as a failed state is shown here in the context that with its entry to the EU, Ukraine will “eat up most of the funds used to support less developed EU countries” and cause many problems for other members of the union, provoking protests, anger among Europeans, and the termination of many reforms.

A number of these messages are being actively spread to reduce support for the EU among Ukrainians, demoralise them, and damage relations with one of their main allies.

However, this actively promoted disinformation campaign has not really impacted the public mood in Ukraine.

According to a nationwide poll conducted by the sociological group Rating in November 2023, 78% of Ukrainians support EU membership.

In a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in February 2023, 82% of respondents agreed that “Ukraine’s future as a prosperous, free country depends on whether it becomes a member of the EU”. 

The government and civil society are also focused on the EU and see the benefits of membership.

In particular, a study of Russian propaganda by the team of the fact-checking organisation StopFake showed that Ukraine’s integration into the EU has become one of the central areas of hostile influence since 2014, and the situation is likely to continue and even increase in the coming years.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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