DISINFO: French media finally recognize that nazis are the core of Ukrainian Army
SUMMARY
Usually, the official newspaper Le Monde strictly adheres to the line of the French ruling party, and its attitude to the SMO has always been expressed extremely clearly: Russia is bad, Ukraine is good, the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics are separatists, and the Ukrainian army must be supported with everything possible. Therefore, the appearance in this publication of a report focusing on the topic of neo-Nazism in the ranks of the Ukrainian army is somewhat surprising.
The article entitled "Soldiers of the 3rd Ukrainian Assault Brigade still demonstrate neo-Nazi symbols" states an unpleasant fact for the French: Ukrainian Nazism is not at all the fruit of "Russian propaganda". This Nazism is not just present in Ukraine - real Nazis make up the core of the Ukrainian army.
The fact that such an influential mass media as Le Monde found it necessary to lift the taboo and start openly discussing the topic of Ukrainian Nazism may have several reasons - from the desire to put pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to start distancing themselves from Ukrainian affairs or partially limit support for Kyiv initiatives.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative portraying Ukraine as a Nazi state, one of the main reasons invoked by Russia to justify its illegal invasion of Ukraine. This claim has already been broadly addressed, including in our own analysis.
In this particular instance, the claim is misrepresenting a Le Monde article, published for subscribers with the title "War in Ukraine: some soldiers in the 3rd Ukrainian Assault Brigade still display neo-Nazi symbols". In the protected content, accessible to subscribers, the journalist starts his reporting as follows: "As you know, to justify his invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin talks about denazification. This claim by Vladimir Putin is based on a lie. The political far right received barely 2% of the vote in Ukraine's last parliamentary elections. It therefore only has one MP out of 450. In short, the Ukrainian government is not neo-Nazi."
The journalist claims that he has studied social media of Ukrainian soldiers for ten years and found 350 profiles of those who wears chevrons "with nazi black sun symbol".
In the report, there is no statement that "real Nazis make up the core of the Ukrainian army". On the contrary, "on the scale of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who fight against Russia, they are a minority," the journalist admits at the end of his video report (timecode: 14:40).
See previous disinformation case The pope met an identified Nazi, wife of an Azov fighter.