DISINFO: Ukrainians are the new Nazis, their actions directed by Europe against Russia
SUMMARY
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is acting against Russia on the orders of third countries.
The German Nazism under Adolf Hitler united most of the countries of Europe to attack and destroy the Soviet Union. Now approximately the same group of countries supports Zelensky.
The new Nazis in Ukraine are gathered under the same banners of the SS divisions and the swastika. These Nazi symbols are tattooed on Ukrainian soldiers' bodies and even adorns the bracelet of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny.
RESPONSE
For years, and especially since the full-scale invasion of 24 February 2022, pro-Kremlin media has been calling to wipe Ukraine off the map, and dehumanising its people, smearing them as “Nazis” who need to be “denazified”. This case is one more example of this.
During the WWII, the alliance with Hitler was exactly the opposite: according to a secret additional protocol to the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR, concluded on August 23, 1939, the Stalin and Hitler regimes agreed to divide Europe among themselves. In September1939 both USSR and Germany invaded Poland starting WWII. Moreover, the initiative for this agreement came from Stalin. According to the memoirs by Vladimir Pavlov, who was Stalin’s personal translator at that meeting, German nazi foreign minister Ribbentrop brought only the text of the main treaty (on non-aggression), but Stalin said: “Additional agreements are needed for this treaty, about which we will not publish anything anywhere.” The text of the protocol was immediately drawn up, which was edited, printed and signed. Stalin stressed several times that this highly secret agreement should never be disclosed by anyone. Until today, most Russians ignore the existence of the pact. It was not made public
The pact brought devastation to the states and regions that were carved up, resulted in the deportation and killing of thousands from those areas, and paved the way for the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain after the war's end in 1945.
Throughout the war, most of the countries of Europe fought against Germany, and not together, as the disinformation narrative pretends. In addition to Italy and Germany, the European allies of the Axis countries were Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania (until 1944, when a coup took place in the country) and Finland (which waged a defensive war against the USSR since 1939). Slovakia and Croatia, which gained formal independence after the German attack on Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, respectively, were actually under German control (much like the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics today), so the "voluntariness" of their participation in the war is a big question.
But the anti-Hitler coalition from European countries included Albania, Belgium, Great Britain, Greece, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
As for accusations of Ukrainians of wearing nazi symblos today, this is a fabrication from pro-Kremlin media.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine has been the cornerstone of Russian disinformation about the country since the very beginning of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, when it was used to discredit the pro-European popular uprising in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy.
In 2015 Ukraine issued a ban on Nazi and Communist ideologies. On top of that, the far-right groups had a limited presence during the Euromaidan protests and have suffered defeats in every national election after that, with a united front of all radical right-wing parties in the 2019 parliamentary elections winning only 2.15% of the vote falling far short of the 5% minimum guaranteeing entry into parliament.
See also: A History of Defamation: key Russian narratives on Ukrainian sovereignty .
See the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine here along with EU vs Disinfo's Guide to Deciphering Pro-Kremlin disinformation around Putin's War.