When Vladimir Putin started the invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, February 24, he justified it by saying that he wanted to «Demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine».
The claim has been repeated many times – including in the UN Security Counciland most recently in Putin’s televised speech on Thursday night Norwegian time.
But where does the claim that the Ukrainians are Nazis come from?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj – who is himself Jewish and has family members who were killed during the Holocaust – has strongly denied and condemned the Nazi accusations.
That it is fascists and Nazis who are fighting in Ukraine sounds good to Russians. Russia suffered heavy losses when it was involved in defeating Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II.
Putin’s critics, according to The Washington Postaccuses him of exploiting these traumas, deeply rooted in the Russian people’s soul, and twists history to suit his own interests.
In this narrative, the West and the United States never acknowledged the efforts of the Soviet Union, and turned their backs on establishing NATO in 1949.
– A tirade of lies
– Justifies war
The Russian narrative of Ukrainian “Nazism” has historical roots that date back to long before the war, according to Ukrainian Vitalii Rybak.
He is the chief analyst at the organization Internews Ukraine, which, among other things, works to combat Russian disinformation.
– To summarize: Dehumanization of Ukrainians makes it easier for the Kremlin to justify war.
However, the close ties between the people of Ukraine and Russia make this a difficult task for Putin, according to Rybak.
For that reason, the Russian propaganda machinery has been working for years with the message that “Nazis control social and political agendas in Ukraine.” That, of course, is not true. Not a single nationalist party currently has more than one percent support.
The closest is the ultranationalist party Svoboda. The party is represented in the Ukrainian National Assembly with one representative.
“Svoboda is the largest right now, but they still have little to no influence over Ukrainian politics and society,” says Rybak.
PROFESSOR: Sven G. Holtsmark. Photo: The Norwegian Defense College.
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– No power
Sven G. Holtsmark, professor of history and Russia expert at the Norwegian Defense College, says that there are two roots to this Nazi rhetoric:
– One is that there is a real instance of extreme right-wing forces in Ukraine. It was a reality, and it is a reality. Among other things, some of these voluntary forces have a strong right-wing ideology, he says, and emphasizes:
– The Ukrainian government is not characterized by this ideology. In any society there will be extreme forces, and not least in Russia itself. But it is not these forces that characterize today’s Ukraine.
Putin is trying to play on what the history professor describes as an identity-creating and heavy memory in the Russian population: namely the wounds of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. That is the second root of Putin’s rhetoric.
– They try to refer to the war of aggression against Ukraine as a continuation of the defense war against Germany, Holtsmark says.
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– Arouses strong emotions
Russian history thus makes the Nazis an imminent enemy image.
– Is Putin trying to evoke memories of World War II in the Russian population?
– In the 1960s, the Soviet Union developed a narrative about “the country that fought the Nazis”. Modern Russia inherited this narrative, with its May 9 cult (Victory Day – Germany capitulated on May 9 in Moscow’s time zone, editor’s note), analyst Vitalii Rybakk answers.
Word war: – Reprehensible lies
Calling someone a “Nazi” therefore arouses strong feelings among Russians, according to Rybak.
– Partly due to the great tragedy of World War II turned out to be for the Soviet Union, partly due to years of propaganda. France and England also suffered heavy losses during World War II, but they did not develop the same cult of victory as Russia did.
He concludes:
– Putin has simply chosen the easiest way to portray Ukrainians as enemies of the Russian people.
Russian top general killed
There are groups
In Ukraine, several right-wing extremist paramilitary groups operate, such as the Azov Battalion. These are referred to as a group with neo-Nazi ideology fighting against Russian separatists in the Donbas region.
– There are such right-wing radical units with an organizational affiliation with the Ukrainian defense. Yes, all this exists, but we must not bite Putin’s glue stick – that is not a relevant argument, says Sven G. Holtsmark.
The Ukrainian politician Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), who led the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, is referred to as both a hero and a Nazi in Ukraine. This has been used by Russia as an argument for Ukraine’s allegedly brown connection.
– Yes, Bandera was a criminal, but what does that have to do with the case today? There are probably many in Western Ukraine who have not read the story of Bandera. How many Norwegians have read the story of the Norwegian front fighters who fought on the German side during the war? asks Professor Holtsmark rhetorically.
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