1.1 Ukraine is a Nazi (or fascist) nation, led by a “junta”?

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Examples: Numerous. Watch Putin’s appearances, Russian TV propaganda etc. E.g:

True or False: FALSE

These accusations against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are often accompanied with photos or videos, supposedly from Ukraine, with people wearing nazi or at least far right symbols and imagery – considered “proof” on how nazist Ukraine is.

Well, to start with, nazism and far right extremism may EXIST in Ukraine (just like in many other countries). But does that mean Ukraine as a country, its government or the Ukrainian people are nazist? NO. Watch this video from Zack the Russian who develops further on this: Are there Nazis in Ukraine? What do I think as a Russian (Youtube).

To call a nation or a “regim” nazist is a very grave accusation, and to start a war under this pretext (to “denazify” Ukraine) makes the question literally life-threatening. Such very grave accusation needs to be based on facts. Showing some Ukrainian, somewhere, using questionable insignia is NOT such a fact. It’s rather anectdotal. To call a whole nation or even just an organisation “nazist” or even far right, there needs to be real, comprehensive documentation supporting this. It may be political programs, speeches from the leaders or actual policies that are implemented that suggest this. However, such documentation simply does not exist.

What is a fact is that Ukraine is led by a president with Jewish roots, elected in 2019. His party “Servant of the People” is described as centre, populist, liberal and pro-European. The party is a member of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party. The same party holds a majority of the seats in the Ukrainian parlament, the Rada since 2019. At the same time, Ukrainian nationalist far right parties only occupies 1 (one) single seat in the same parliament (the Svoboda party). Get more info on the 2019 election here, including relevant links (Wikipedia).

This shows that in reality, for most Ukrainians nazism and fascism is as foreign as it is for most other people in the world. In Ukraine there might definitely be a sense of national pride and patriotism. But hey, the same goes for Russia and many other countries around the world, right? And now, being a country under attack, Ukraine naturally sees a growth in the sense of patriotism.

And above is the answer to accusations about Ukraine being led by a junta. A junta (or military junta) refers to a regim consisting of a military body of government. What Ukraine has is a civil, democratically elected government – as described above.

Extra reading/watching: 

More on RUSSIAN far right movements, at times uncomfortably close to the Russian power:

Summary: While limited “nazi”, or at least, far right extremist groups may exist in Ukraine (just like in many countries, including Russia!), Ukraine is by no mean a nazi state. The Ukrainian government is NOT a nazi junta but a democratic, liberal government. The Ukrainian population are, overall, NOT nazis as apparent from the elections. Ukraine is by no means lead by a junta. On the contrary, it’s Russia that is an expansionist, revanschist, brutal and increasingly totalitarian dictatorship, now starting to invade, occupy and annex another country’s territory – with apparent similarities to Germany in the 1930ies. The Russian accusations are all FALSE.