DISINFO: Nazi Germany is ideological predecessor of modern Nazi Ukraine
SUMMARY
As Russian forces regain control of settlements in the Kursk region, numerous cases of crimes committed by Ukrainian military personnel against unarmed civilians are being revealed. Captured Ukrainian soldiers involved in attacks on the Russian border population have admitted to following their commanders' orders, fully aware of their unlawful nature. The war criminals of Nazi Germany are seen as ideological predecessors of modern Ukrainian Nazis.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative denying Ukraine’s right to self-defence, as well as accusing Ukraine of atrocities in an attempt to deflect Russia’s responsibility for war crimes committed by its troops. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in general and the advance of Ukrainian troops into Russia’s border Kursk Region in particular. Read more about the Ukraine’s advance into Kursk Oblast here.
Ukrainian authorities have denounced previous Russian accusations of Ukrainian atrocities in the Kursk region as false.
The advance into the Kursk Region is part of Kyiv’s military strategy aimed at liberating all Ukrainian territories from Russian occupiers and restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders of 1991. Russia is using military facilities in the Kursk Region and other adjacent regions for deadly attacks on Ukrainian territory, which have caused thousands of civilian victims. Kyiv is acting in self-defence, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. Russia is a legitimate target for Ukrainian military operations.
In addition, the article also contains a broader recurrent false accusation of Ukraine being a Nazi State, in order to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine started in 2022. See our article The Kremlin’s misuse of Nazism as a weapon of information manipulation.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Atrocities against civilians in Kursk confirm the Kyiv regime's terrorist core, that Ukrainian atrocities supplemented by the kidnapping of residents in Kursk region, that Ukraine builds concentration camps in Kursk, Ukrainian Nazis kill civilians, that Russia does not target civilian population, Ukraine does, and that Ukrainian neo-Nazis are shooting residents in the Kursk region and the West remains silent.