Aggressors may use propaganda instruments to invert roles, presenting their own offensive actions as a forced measure of self-defense. By claiming fictitious threats from the local population or external forces, the aggressor constructs a false narrative in which it acts solely as a defender of its own interests or security. This makes it possible to morally justify the invasion and shift the blame for the escalation of violence onto the colonized society.
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire stripped the Indigenous population of the status of a legitimate adversary by applying an inversion of meanings: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that lawful defense was labeled with criminal terms, and «The anti-colonial and anti-feudal uprisings of the population of Chechnya, referred to in official documents as 'mischief', 'robberies', and 'murders', were perceived by the Russian autocracy as a challenge and an insult»[1], which served as a formal pretext for punitive actions.
The Russian Empire shifted the blame for the devastation it had wrought onto the victimized people itself. In a proclamation to the inhabitants of the Chechen land, the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Tormasov, presented the pogrom of 1807 as a consequence of the inhabitants' own actions: «the raids and depredations that you carried out within the borders of Russia brought upon you righteous wrath… you yourselves were the cause of the misfortune that befell you three years ago» — and threatened a new invasion, «to bring sword and flame upon the guilty», offering «mercy» in exchange for submission[2].
The exploitation of the Odesa tragedy to build a state propaganda myth and invert the roles: the actual picture, per the UN, is clashes "between supporters of unity and supporters of the federalization of Ukraine, as a result of which 48 people died," while the investigation remains incomplete and "no one has yet been held to account"[3]. The tragedy was used as moral justification for further aggression - by the same device as the "crucified boy" fake, for which "there is no evidence to support Pyshniak's claim"[4].