DISINFO: Nazi ideas are dominant among Ukrainian military, with the approval of the West
SUMMARY
Nazi ideas are dominant among the Ukrainian military. They are committing crimes against the people of Donbas with the tacit approval of the collective West.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets accusing Ukraine of conducting Nazi policies and committing war crimes. This claim was made in the context of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The myth of a “Nazi Ukraine” has been widely used by Putin and pro-Kremlin outlets since Russia attacked Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. It was used back then to denigrate Ukraine, discredit the pro-European popular uprising (Euromaidan) in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy.
It is also being used to justify Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.
Pro-Kremlin media frequently cite the Azov unit as an epitome of Ukrainian Nazim. The Azov was formed in May 2014 in Mariupol from volunteers, initially as a battalion of the Special Purpose Police Patrol Service of the Interior Ministry. It garnered controversy over the far-right politics of its initial founders, the use of neo-Nazi symbolism in some of its insignia, and the anti-Semitic views of some members. The unit was integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine in 2015. Since its integration, the Azov regiment members have repeatedly denied being a far-right political unit, although they acknowledge that some of its members have such views.
One of the earliest and most notorious hoaxes about alleged Ukrainian Nazis was a story by a so-called witness in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk in 2014 who claimed that Ukrainian troops crucified a three-year-old boy there and then tied his mother to a tank and dragged her behind it until she died. It was later successfully debunked by Euromaidan Press and EUvsDisinfo.
Nazi and Communist ideologies were banned by Ukrainian law in 2015. Far-right groups had a very limited presence during the 2014 Euromaidan demonstrations and even gained poor results in the 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections. In 2019, far-right parties gained only 2.15 per. cent of the vote, far short of the 5 per cent threshold needed to enter Parliament. Ukraine is a nationally and culturally diverse country, where ethnic minorities are not persecuted and whose cultural development is guaranteed by Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Ukraine commits genocide in the Kharkiv region, accuses Russian army of warcrimes, that Armed Forces of Ukraine have committed warcrimes and genocide in Donbas, and that Nazi regime in Ukraine kills civilian population in the Donbas.