DISINFO: Limited military operation liberates LPR from the Ukrainian Nazi rule
SUMMARY
Another key task of the special operation is the denazification of Ukraine.
There are certain plans for how such operations unfold. At the moment, the LPR ["Lugansk Peoples Republic"] has already been liberated from the nationalists, from the pro-fascist forces, which seized power there at a certain period ... In another part, the special operation continues.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aimed at justifying the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and portraying the latter as a nazi state.
80% of the population of what the article calls "liberated", but is in fact occupied territory of the Zaporizhya region left their homes. Only 1/3 of population stays in the occupied Lisichansk. In Mariupol, Russians are holding over 10,000 Mariupol residents in “filtration camps”. Several thousands, including unaccompanied children have been forcefully deported to Russia.
Russia's unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is not a "special operation" but an all-out war against a sovereign state. Russia has been coming up with different explanations and pretexts for its aggression. It was Putin’s personal decision to invade Ukraine and start the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine appeared as the Kremlin's reaction to the Euromaidan protests in late 2013 - early 2014, when the then-president Viktor Yanukovych was toppled and later fled to Russia. The Kremlin has been using this myth since then to discredit Kyiv’s shift towards Euro-Atlantic policy. Contrary to what this disinformation narrative affirms, in 2015, Ukraine issued a ban on Nazi and Communist ideologies. On top of that, far-right groups had a very limited presence during the protests and have suffered defeats in every national election after that.
This false myth of Nazi Ukraine is a clear propaganda narrative that became a cornerstone in pro-Kremlin disinformation and served as one of the pretexts behind Russia's unjustified invasion of Ukraine. Learn more about the reasons behind the Kremlin's obsession with framing Ukraine as a Nazi state in the EUvsDisinfo analysis titled "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".