Pro-Kremlin resources disseminate information that those who died during the tragedy in the Odesa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014 cannot be brought back, but it is possible to “defend their memory, restore honor and glory to them”. And this is one of the goals of the so-called SVO (special military operation). In asserting this, propagandists refer to a statement by Vice-Speaker of the Russian Federation Council Kosachov.

In fact, such statements serve solely to justify Russian aggression. They write about this in the Center for Strategic Communications and Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. The Russian disinformation operation to “burn Russian speakers in Odesa” has become a successful mechanism for inciting war. The tragedy itself in Odesa was another episode of Russia’s hybrid aggression against Ukraine.

That is, Moscow still uses the narrative about the “Odesa hut” in its propaganda. However, Russia's cynicism is that this is happening at a time when it is terrorizing civilian targets in Odesa, killing its inhabitants.

Read also: Odesa – a “Russian city”? How Russia is capturing the symbolic space of Ukrainian cities – MediaSapiens.