On February 23, a few hours before a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and during Putin's official address, the Russian president declared that a clash between Russia and “nationalist forces” in Ukraine was inevitable. After that, the so-called special military operation was officially announced.

The special military operation is one of the most eloquent examples of how Russia uses newspeak to hide and distort reality, and at the same time absolve itself of responsibility under international law.

Special military operation (in Russian - SVO) is a term that has entered the dictionary of the Russian new language and is used to refer to Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine. In other words, the war that the aggressor country started. With the help of a combination of these words, the true meaning of the concept of “war” is blurred among people, because this is just an “operation” that is not associated with something bloody. And it seems to be done well. Propagandists have repeatedly noted that this “operation”, for example, is designed to save the Russian-speaking people, enslaved under the yoke of Ukraine. That is, the occupiers appear as some kind of liberators who allegedly carry out an “operation” for the sake of salvation.

However, there is a war going on in Ukraine, and this is clear without any announcements. However, international law is not focused on words and statements, but on specific actions. Therefore, what is happening from the point of view of international law is an obvious war. The terrorist country, masquerading as the concept of “SVO”, actually carried out a large-scale offensive on the territory of the whole of Ukraine and has been committing war crimes since the invasion. However, calling what is happening only an operation, Russia is blurring reality in order to hide its true goals in Ukraine.

This text is the first in the “Newspeak” section, which Detector Media is launching as part of the Disinformation Chronicles project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes used by Russian propaganda to distort reality.

We recall that the newspeak is an artificial language from George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”. In the novel, Newspeak means words that lose their original meaning and have a completely opposite meaning. For example: war - peace. According to the plot of the novel, such a technique was used by the totalitarian party. It is this technique that has gained popularity among representatives of real totalitarian regimes. In particular, Nazi and Russian.