DISINFO: Ukraine is a neo-Nazi Russophobic state
SUMMARY
Russia was always ready to live in peace with Ukraine until it became a neo-Nazi Russophobic state with plans to join the NATO military bloc.
RESPONSE
This is part of a disinformation campaign aiming to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, portraying the Ukrainian leadership as Nazis and pathologically Russophobic.
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. Far-right groups enjoyed a very limited presence during the Euromaidan itself and had poor results in the 2019 election cycle, falling short of the 5% minimum guaranteeing entry into parliament.
Nazi and Communist ideologies were banned by Ukrainian law in 2015 resulting in hundreds of monuments to Communist leaders being demolished in Ukraine since it gained independence in 1991.
Labelling Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a very frequently used pro-Kremlin disinformation technique, and has been used by Russia to try to justify the invasion of Ukraine by portraying it as a “denazification operation”. Russia spent years preparing the information battleground prior to its full-scale invasion, with “Nazi Ukraine” being one of its most prominent disinformation features.
Read our analysis titled Key narratives in pro-kremlin disinformation: “Nazis” and "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
See also similar disinformation cases claiming that Ukraine has become a failed self-hated state due to its neo-Nazi ideology, that Neo-Nazi Ukrainians want to negotiate because their loss is imminent, that Ukrainians behave like Nazis in Kursk Region, that Ukrainian neo-Nazi militants organized the massacre in Odessa in 2014, that Nazi Ukraine promotes racial superiority over Russians and Americans, that Ukraine promotes Nazism because it oppresses Russians, that Kyiv regime glorifies Nazism and uses terror against everyone, that Nazism has revived in Ukraine and actively cultivated by the West.