The FIMI of Russian Invincibility: How a Myth Becomes a Strategic Weapon
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The mythology of Russian military invincibility is not new, but since the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 it has become one of the central pillars of the Kremlin’s information warfare. Research shows this narrative is deliberately engineered to serve geopolitical, military and psychological objectives; in particular to deter Western support for Ukraine, demoralise Ukrainian society, and project an image abroad of unstoppable Russian power.
The invincibility myth depicts Ukrainian mobilisation as desperate – it claims huge Ukrainian losses without any evidence and suggests the imminent collapse of Ukraine. Moscow also uses this myth to pressure international partners into accepting Moscow’s terms. It creates the perception that capitulation is the only option and frames any Russian retreat as a ’goodwill gesture’, not a loss.
The invincibility narrative intensified after Ukraine’s successful counteroffensives in 2022 undermined the Kremlin’s battlefield messaging.
This article looks at three major clusters of disinformation claims:
Myth One: Russia is an unstoppable military force
One of the most persistent narratives frames Russia as a global military superpower with limitless resources, unrivalled combat experience, and certain victory. Such a narrative typically includes claims that Russian forces decisively control contested areas, that Russia has never lost a major conflict, and that its military ranking automatically determines success.
This narrative is used domestically to project strength, and internationally to intimidate adversaries and weaken support for Ukraine. Senior Russian officials regularly reinforce it with statements such as the army being ‘the most capable fighting force’ or gaining ‘invaluable experience’ from the war.
In practice, these claims often rely on exaggeration or fabrication. Russia has repeatedly announced Ukrainian defeats that did not occur. In 2023, for example, it claimed to have completely destroyed Ukraine’s air force, a claim proven false in subsequent months.
A similar, even more daunting exaggeration is Russia’s continued claim of military success in Ukraine. In reality, in 2025,Russia has only been able to take over 0.8% of Ukraine’s territory at a cost of 416,570 casualties. The advance is so slow, that the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte compared Russia to a garden snail. The aggressive war has also created serious strains for the Russian economy, making Russia’s rate of military advance unsustainable in the long run.
The Kremlin also continues to twist the words of credible Western sources to back up its claims of military invincibility. The Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Thierry Burkhard was quoted as saying the Russian Army has ’no shortcomings’. This was an absolute distortion of his statements, where he highlighted Russia as the main threat to France. Burkhard mentioned Russian ‘incredible losses it is suffering’ and used the phrase ‘complete army model’ with a meaning of an army capable of deploying assets from land, air and sea. Besides, it is important to contextualise his words in a timeframe: the French military was considering a scenario happening only in several years, ‘before 2030’.
Historical revisionism further reinforces the broader narrative. Pro‑Kremlin channels claim that the Soviet Union alone defeated Nazism and liberated Europe, while the West abandoned the Soviet Union. This narrative is then repurposed for the current war: Russia casts itself as the heir to the force that defeated fascism, while falsely labelling Ukraine as ’Nazi’ to justify aggression.
Myth Two: Russian firepower is so powerful and terrifying that fighting it is pointless.
Russian weapons are claimed to have no equivalent, be unstoppable and capable of catastrophic destruction. This narrative creates an illusion of overwhelming Russian capabilities, puts Western nations off offering military support to Ukraine, and uses fear to create deterrence. Some of those claims in detail:
The Burevestnik, a nuclear cruise missile that Russia is developing is unique in the world, according to Putin. Its development, he claimed, was remarkable as experts said it was so advanced it wasn’t feasible in the near future.
At the same time, while declaring its own ‘invulnerability’ and demonstrating its belligerent mood to the world, the Kremlin has failed to achieve a single strategic goal in Ukraine.
Another weapon, the medium-range ballistic missile Oreshnik, is allegedly so powerful that it was said to have caused an earthquake in the Lviv region of Ukraine. Oreshnik is apparently comparable in destructive power to ’low-yield nuclear weapons, but without radioactive contamination and other catastrophic factors’. However, no Western monitoring authority picked up any signs of an earthquake in Ukraine.
Moreover, the Oreshnik, so beloved by pro-Kremlin sources, was launched at Ukraine only twice, in November 2024 and January 2026, which could indicate significant production problems with this missile.
Myth Three: Ukraine and its allies have already lost the war
This Russian narrative is clearly intended to generate resignation and hopelessness in Ukraine, and also to strengthen Russia’s position in peace talks, weaken international support for Ukraine, and suggest further aid from the West is pointless.
Russian claims to support this narrative do not hold up. According to the Kremlin, over 90% of Europeans are convinced Ukraine has already lost the war. This is a wilful misinterpretation of an opinion poll, which clearly states that only 20% expect a defeat of Ukraine, but pro-Kremlin sources are not beyond turning the truth on its head. According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, more than 50% of the EU citizens support the financial, humanitarian aid and financing the military equipment to Ukraine, as well as imposing sanctions on Russian government.
Unable to accept they lost control over their own territory, they pretend the Kursk offensive was in fact a cunning, Russian trap to lure Ukrainian troops away from the Donbas. It is also hard to forget the stories about Kupyansk being under total Russian control, despite all the evidence to the contrary with President Zelenskyy himself, who visited the city to make a video.
The Kremlin has also twisted the reporting of respected Western mainstream media outlets to demonstrate how hopeless Ukraine’s allies feel about its prospects for victory. The Financial Times apparently reported that exhausted Ukrainian troops were losing hope. This was a correct, direct quote from the article. The wider focus of the story was however the direct opposite: ’Ukrainian troops struggle with exhaustion but pledge to fight ‘until we break the Russians’ belief that we can be defeated.’ It’s a classic manipulative technique – quoting legitimate, Western sources to seemingly endorse a pro-Kremlin message.
As far as peace negotiations are concerned, Putin was portrayed before the Istanbul talks last year as a magnanimous (soon to be) victor, proposing to invite Ukraine to the negotiating table with preconditions as a sign of ’strategic greatness’, even though it would be the defeated party.
The combination of these narratives operate to support a single overarching objective: that Russia is powerful and victorious, and Ukraine is weak, abandoned, and doomed. By doing this, pro‑Kremlin disinformation attempts to influence decision making and peace talks, weaken international alliances, and shape public perceptions at home and abroad.
Article and pictures first time published on the EUvsDisinfo web page. Prepared for publication by volunteers from the Res Publica - The Center for Civil Resistance.
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