Recently, the "Memo of a serviceman of the Russian Armed Forces participating in the Special military operation", which had been issued to Russian soldiers before they were sent to fight in Ukraine, was leaked online. A significant part of it is devoted to the argumentation of the Russian invasion in the form of a pseudo-historical reference containing several fundamental manipulative narratives of the Russian Federation.

This historical segment has the following fragment: "To survive, the West has to openly wage wars against countries rich in raw materials. Oil-rich Iraq was destroyed, and its oil was captured by Western companies. The same fate befell Libya. The war against everyone on the resource-rich "Black Continent" will not end. Attempts to destroy Syria and Iran after destroying Iraq and Libya have failed...". This statement is manipulative.

Mykhaylo Yakubovych, PhD in History, Orientalist, author of the first complete translation of the Qur'an into Ukrainian, researcher at the University of Freiburg, commented on the above:

"This topic pops up regularly and not only in Russia - it's generally the narrative of the 'Global South' versus the 'Global North'. There are a few issues to consider here. First of all, it all starts with Iraq, with the events of 1990 and 1991, namely the aggression against Kuwait. This is, in fact, the event that forced Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to ask for help from the West and marked the beginning of the wider presence of the United States (and Western countries in general) in the Persian Gulf. After decolonization, there had been no such military presence in the region, and now there was. All the keys to understanding further events lie in the years 1990 and 1991. Moreover, all neighboring countries (except Syria and Iran) supported the US invasion of Iraq.

We can also recall the preceding events of the Iran-Iraq War (Iraq's aggression against Iran in 1980-1988), as the roots of the events of 2003 also lie in the 1980s. So, one of the most real reasons for the US attack on Iraq is the dissatisfaction with Saddam Hussein's regime on the part of its Muslim neighbors, the Gulf countries. After all, he posed a huge threat to them - economic, military, etc. It is no surprise that the attack on Iraq in 2003 was carried out from military bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait with the full support of these states. This point is often ignored.

As for Syria, everything started with the Arab Spring, the process of democratization in the Middle East. Earlier, Syria had already experienced the impact of various authoritarian approaches, including such terrible atrocities of the regime as the Hama massacre (1982). So it is no wonder that a large part of the population was fed up with it.

Therefore, it is impossible for us to summarize all these cases under one cause, but there are several points that should be understood, in particular the events of the Iraq War. The attack on Iraq was carried out by all of its neighbors, which means that, in simple terms, Hussein had specifically pissed off everyone in the region. The situation with Syria is different. Although the Syrian regime also did a lot of evil in Iraq in the 2000s with its proxies. Just look through the history of the Baath Party (Arab socialism supported by the Soviet Union), or consider the factors behind the emergence of ISIS.

So, the Iraq War was not just the US desire to capture the oil market. It is important to understand all the preconditions. Unfortunately, they are usually forgotten. Blaming everything on the West leads to ignoring the factor of local authoritarian regimes that clearly did not strive for peace."

Russia manipulates the facts by generalizing and equating very different conflicts in the Middle East, and completely ignoring the context of the events of the past.