DISINFO: Ukraine has no business to integrate Crimea on the UEFA shirts
SUMMARY
Attempts from the government of Kyiv to politicise (the UEFA European Football Championship) by linking Crimea, which is not part of the Ukrainian state, to the uniform of the Ukrainian national team.
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The Ukrainian act is a miserable and desperate campaign of deception, especially by using the slogans of ultranationalists.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about the illegal annexation of Crimea and the alleged power and influence of nationalists in Ukraine.
Crimea is still legally part of Ukraine, no international body, not the UN nor the EU, recognises the so-called referendum that was organised hastily and at gunpoint following the covert invasion of Russia's “little green men” and barring impartial observers from entering the peninsula.
On another level, all right-wing groups have suffered spectacular defeats in every national election since 2014. In 2019, the far-right "Svoboda" (often described as "ultra-nationalist" or "Nazis" by pro-Kremlin outlets) gained only 2.15% of the vote, far short of the threshold needed to enter Parliament. This demonstrates the public's lack of support for far-right nationalist parties in Ukraine. The current president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy got 73.22% of the vote in the 2019 presidential elections. His party "Sluga narodu" got the largest number of votes - 43.16% in subsequent parliamentary elections.
As for the so-called ultranationalists slogans, the motto “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” has roots in the 19th century and the birth of the Ukrainian nation. It was first used in the 1918-1920 wars for the independence of Ukraine much before the emergence of Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany. More about the history of the slogan can be read here (in Ukrainian).
Pro-Kremlin media often use the expressions “ultranationalists” and “fascists” to depict all critics of Moscow's imperialism.
Read similar cases in our databases that claim that the Fascist coup d'etat took place in Ukraine in 2014; or that Ukrainian army uniforms feature Nazi imagery; or that Crimean people chose to be with Russia; or that Ukraine was led by nationalist extremists and fascists; or that Crimea is a Russian sovereign region.