Putin's "denazification" claims

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Some people keep implying that Ukraine is mostly a neo-Nazi state. That's certainly what Russian propaganda has been saying - starting with the invasion. But Ukraine is not overrun by Nazis or ruled by Nazis.

This wasn't a major theme in Russian media before the invasion. It's a theme they started flooding the media with on the day of the invasion.

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Here are some statements from Jewish Groups on these Russian claims.

ADL

ADL also strongly condemns and refutes President Putin's stated war aim of "denazification" of Ukraine. Invoking Nazism to legitimize Russia's aggression is unacceptable. Ukraine is a democracy with equal rights for its Jewish citizens, including the right to be elected to its highest office, as President Zelensky has demonstrated.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum strongly condemns Russia’s outrageous attack on Ukraine and is deeply concerned about threats to civilians and loss of life. In justifying this attack, Vladimir Putin has misrepresented and misappropriated Holocaust history by claiming falsely that democratic Ukraine needs to be “denazified.” Equally groundless and egregious are his claims that Ukrainian authorities are committing “genocide” as a justification for the invasion of Ukraine.

“We strongly condemn this unprovoked attack and are greatly concerned about the loss of life. The Museum stands with the Ukrainian people, including the thousands of Holocaust survivors still living in the country,” said Museum chairman, Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat. “These survivors are remnants of one of Europe’s largest pre-war Jewish populations that was almost completely decimated by the Germans in World War II. Having suffered terribly as victims of both Nazism and Communism, Ukrainians today are seeking to fulfill their democratic aspirations.”

Statement on the War in Ukraine by Scholars of Genocide, Nazism and World War II

As we write this, the horror of war is unfolding in Ukraine. The last time Kyiv was under heavy artillery fire and saw tanks in its streets was during World War II. If anyone should know it, it’s Vladimir Putin, who is obsessed with the history of that war.

Russian propaganda has painted the Ukrainian state as Nazi and fascist ever since Russian special forces first entered Ukraine in 2014, annexing the Crimea and fomenting the conflict in the Donbas, which has smoldered for eight long years.

It was propaganda in 2014. It remains propaganda today.

This is why we came together: to protest the use of this false and destructive narrative. Among those who have signed the statement below are some of the most accomplished and celebrated scholars of World War II, Nazism, genocide and the Holocaust. If you are a scholar of this history, please consider adding your name to the list. If you are a journalist, you now have a list of experts you can turn to in order to help your readers better understand Russia’s war against Ukraine.

We strongly reject the Russian government’s cynical abuse of the term genocide, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, and the equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression. This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it, including Russian and Ukrainian soldiers of the Red Army.

We do not idealize the Ukrainian state and society. Like any other country, it has right-wing extremists and violent xenophobic groups. Ukraine also ought to better confront the darker chapters of its painful and complicated history. Yet none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine. At this fateful moment we stand united with free, independent and democratic Ukraine and strongly reject the Russian government’s misuse of the history of World War II to justify its own violence.

[barnhart]

There seem to be Nazis in Charlottesville Va but I don't see how that would justify invasion.

[Ken]

There are also a LOT more neo-Nazis in Russia than there are in Ukraine. Russia should probably get its own house in order first before worrying about foreign Nazis.

'Denazification'? Neo-Nazi Groups Fighting Alongside Russian Forces in Ukraine According to a German intelligence report, two neo-Nazi groups are fighting alongside Moscow in Ukraine, despite the Kremlin's claim to be 'denazifying' its southwestern neighbor https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/euro ... b763f30000

Putin Doesn’t Combat Nazism, He Cultivates It https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au ... ivates-it/

Russia's long history of neo-Nazis: Some have pointed out the far right received only 2% of the vote in Ukraine’s 2019 parliamentary elections, far less than in most of Europe. Others have drawn attention to Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the efforts of the Ukrainian state to protect minorities like Crimean Tatars and LGBTQ+ people, who are subject to brutal persecution in Russia.

What has received less coverage is the Putin regime’s own record of collaboration with far-right extremists. Even as Russian diplomats condemned “fascists” in the Baltic states and Kremlin propagandists railed against imaginary “Ukronazis” in power in Kyiv, the Russian state was cultivating its own homegrown Nazis. https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/article ... -neo-nazis

also....



But hey, there is a 2015 photoshopped photo of some Avoz Batallion soldier holding a swastika flag so Ukraine needed to be destroyed.

[Bootstrap]

But hey, there is a 2015 photoshopped photo of some Avoz Batallion soldier holding a swastika flag so Ukraine needed to be destroyed.

Oh, there are some real Nazis in the Azov Batallion. Bellingcat has good information on this:

https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/azov/

But Ukraine also has an openly Jewish president and an openly Jewish prime minister. It's not a Nazi government. Jewish Quarterly had an article about this:

Volodymyr Zelensky and the Jews of eastern Ukraine

And you know, we have seen a lot of normalization of neo-Nazis in the more extreme end of American politics. Is a military invasion the right way to fix that?

[Ken]

But hey, there is a 2015 photoshopped photo of some Avoz Batallion soldier holding a swastika flag so Ukraine needed to be destroyed.

Oh, there are some real Nazis in the Azov Batallion. Bellingcat has good information on this:

https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/azov/

But Ukraine also has an openly Jewish president and an openly Jewish prime minister. It's not a Nazi government. Jewish Quarterly had an article about this:

Volodymyr Zelensky and the Jews of eastern Ukraine

And you know, we have seen a lot of normalization of neo-Nazis in the more extreme end of American politics. Is a military invasion the right way to fix that?

My understanding was that Azov was something of a private ultra-right wing militia in 2014 or so that attracted some right-wing Neo-Nazi types, but after the Ukrainian army subsumed the Azov Battalion into the regular Ukrainian Army they made a thorough effort to clean out the extremist ideologies, and that the Azov Battalion that existed in 2022 (and was famous for the defense of Mariupol) was an entirely different organization than the one that had existed 10 years earlier. There were various Jewish soldiers serving in the Battalion in 2022, for example. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news ... iupol-azov

In other words, the Ukrainian government and Army was aware of the problem and dealt with it unlike what is currently happening in Russia where extremist groups and Neo-Nazis are supported and weaponized by Putin.

[Franklin]

The main difference between Liberals and Nazis is that Liberals are dishonest and corrupt while Nazis are honest and not corrupt. Other than that, they are the same. Both are racist. Both hate freedom and human decency. Both gladly murder civilians.

Ukraine has Liberal/Nazi alliance government. So naturally western Liberals love Ukraine and tell many lies to support it. This includes denying the Nazi half of the Ukrainian government. Of course Putin is correct.

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The US military has its own problems with white supremacists.

The Iron March Data Dump Provides a Window Into How White Supremacists Communicate and Recruit

Vice and Bellingcat have also reported that at least eight members of Iron March and Atomwaffen Division are currently serving in the U.S. military. These individuals have openly discussed their military involvement on Iron March. While they may be exaggerating the number of neo-Nazis or white supremacists currently serving in the U.S. military, their statements, if true, indicate that a community exists. As one Iron March user stated:

In my unit (infantry) I’ve met quite a few rightists—some openly NS, lots of neo-Nazis, others just nationalists, others red-pilled conservatives, others blue-pilled militiamen, even a couple Mormon extremists. You see plenty “of our kind” in the combat arms.... On most bases you can see the occasional right-wing symbol. Sun wheel there, 88 here, Mussolini’s face over there, a Templar cross tattoo. The symbols of SS units are especially common, even on things as public as cars, flags, and helmets.

Here's a book on the topic. I haven't read it, though, and I can't yet vouch for the evidence it gives for its claims.

Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror

Since the launch of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars—now the longest wars in American history—the US military has struggled to recruit troops. It has responded, as Matt Kennard’s explosive investigative report makes clear, by opening its doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, gang members, criminals of all stripes, the overweight, and the mentally ill. Based on several years of reporting, Irregular Army includes extensive interviews with extremist veterans and leaders of far-right hate groups—who spoke openly of their eagerness to have their followers acquire military training for a coming domestic race war. As a report commissioned by the Department of Defense itself put it, “Effectively, the military has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy pertaining to extremism.”

Irregular Army connects some of the War on Terror’s worst crimes to this opening-up of the US military. With millions of veterans now back in the US and domestic extremism on the rise, Kennard’s book is a stark warning about potential dangers facing Americans—from their own soldiers.