Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty
Neo-Nazism is one of the central claims behind PresidentVladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, despite evidence that the assertion is false.
“In terms of all of the sort of constituent parts of Nazism, none of that is in play in Ukraine,” Jonathan Dekel-Chen, a history professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University,told the Associated Press.
“Territorial ambitions. State-sponsored terrorism. Rampant antisemitism. Bigotry. A dictatorship. None of those are in play,” he added. “So this is just total fiction.”
Russiabegan its invasion of Ukraineearlier this week, according to the Ukraine government. The attack is still evolving, but explosions and airstrikes have been reported, with threats mounting against the capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million people.
In a speech on Monday, Putin suggested that NATO countries are backing neo-Nazis in Russia’s latest attempt to delegitimize Ukrainian nationalism.
“It is not surprising that Ukrainian society was faced with the rise of far-right nationalism, which rapidly developed into aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism,” Putin said, perThe Washington Post.
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty
In an address on Thursday, Putin said the decision to send troops into Ukraine was done to help “denazify” the country. He also insisted that Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the interest of so-called “peacekeeping.”
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“To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and put to justice those that committed numerous bloody crimes against peaceful people, including Russian nationals,” Putin said, perRussia’s state news agency.
But there are several flaws in the Russian president’s claims.
DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty
Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, revealed during a trip to Jerusalem in 2020 that three of his great uncles died in the Holocaust during World War II, according to thePost. His grandfather survived.
Many other Ukrainians lost family members in WWII, as well. More than 20 million Soviet soldiers were killed during the war,according to the World War II museum in New Orleans, when Nazi Germany occupied the region now known as Ukraine.
In an interview with thePost, Yale University professor Timothy Snyder noted that Putin grew up when “the Second World War was at the center of Soviet identity and the enemies were the fascists.”
Now, Snyder added, Putin appears to be “fighting a war the way that actual Nazis did.”
Emilio Morenatti/AP/Shutterstock
Several nationalist paramilitary groups operate in the country, including the Azov movement and Right Sector, per thePost. During the most recent Ukrainian parliamentary elections in 2019, however, ultranationalist right-wing parties failed to gain any power in the nation’s 450-member legislature.
Russia is determined to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, which formed following World War II. Putin has warned Ukraine and NATO that “no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to the destruction and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor,” per theAP.
source: people.com
