By resorting to rhetoric about “independence and sovereignty”, Russian propaganda ironizes and seeks to challenge both the independence and sovereignty of the Ukrainian state. Propagandists often write this phrase according to Russian transliteration, thereby demonstrating their disdainful, frivolous attitude towards Ukraine. They say that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate, and the country is led either by the “collective West”, or by “overseas masters”, etc. And, accordingly, all important decisions regarding Ukraine are made somewhere in “Western offices”.

This term was also used in a religious context, when in 2022 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) announced the alleged severance of ties with Moscow, proclaiming this “independence and sovereignty”. However, at that time there was no talk of either autocephaly or autonomy, which could be considered a real achievement. Therefore, Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) Yevstratii Zoria emphasized that the corresponding statement of the UOC-MP really serves as a cover for its lack of independence and sovereignty in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).

On August 24, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada of the then Ukrainian SSR adopted a historical document - the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. The independence of Ukraine was also recognized by the international community - in December 1991 alone, more than 40 countries did so. Then a new independent state appeared on the geopolitical map of the world - Ukraine. In addition, in the Constitution of Ukraine, Article 1 reads as follows: “Ukraine is a sovereign and independent, democratic, social, legal state”. Therefore, the rhetoric of Russian propagandists who doubt the sovereignty of Ukraine is, in particular, another justification for their imperial ambitions to conquer their neighboring country.