According to the Russian media, Ukraine has turned into a Nazi state with the direct support of the West and is a danger to Russia's security. The narrative is constructed with the help of false arguments about the rising level of crime following the Donbass war.
NEWS: “There is an epidemic in Ukraine. It started not in 2020, but in 2014. And the worst thing is that this epidemic is worse than the coronavirus, because it affects not the lungs, but the brain. It's Nazism. […] The depressing atmosphere is intensified by mass crime even among the military – “heroes of the ATO” [anti-terrorist operation], whose “bright images” are actively used by the Ukrainian militarist propaganda.The crimes of the military returning from the ATO area have a mass character: shooting people and confiscating various objects, drug and alcohol addiction, participating in the activity of neo-Nazi groups and creating criminal gangs - all these are a natural consequence of soldiers carrying out an endless war, the overall decline of the state and the mental illness of the Ukrainian masses. In other words, the citizens of Ukraine can become “collateral victims” of these war dogs...[…]In western Ukraine, activities to establish far-right groups stared with the direct support of the Ukrainian diaspora and Western special services.
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In the undergoing process of Ukraine’s feudalization, every regional master needs his own military detachments, but he simply has nowhere to find them, except for far-right groups and “old soldiers.”
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The current post-Maidan regime poses a very specific threat to Ukraine's neighbors and the people. This is especially true for Russia, as there is the Crimean issue that affects the relations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine […]. At the same time, Ukraine does not hide its intentions to gain territorial advantage in the future, with the support of the West, following the weakening of Russia if it loses the geopolitical competition, and the new forces within the Russian state, which could come to power, aim a conciliation with the West.”
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine has become a Nazi state with the direct support of the West; 2. The Ukrainian state is a threat to Russia's security; 3. Ukraine's crime rate is rising as a result of the Donbass war.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: At the beginning of 2022, the Russian state press published a series of articles in order to show that Ukraine is a Nazi or neo-Nazi state, these narratives being a continuation of the those from 2020-2021, brought up in the public post - Soviet space on the occasion of the anniversaries of some important events in the history of the USSR.
After the events of 2014 (the Euromaidan in Kiev, the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the outbreak of the conflict in Donbass), Kiev is dubbed “Nazi” by the Moscow press especially when it comes to Victory Day, marked with great pomp by Russia. Since 2014, Ukraine has given up some Soviet World War II narratives, by including a compromise holiday on its official calendar - Remembrance and Conciliation Day - to reconcile both the Soviet war veterans and the fighters in the Insurgent Army, made up of Ukrainian nationalists. Kiev is gradually moving to a calendar of public holidays close to the European one, and the Russian press sees this approach as a betrayal on Ukraine’s part, an attempt to rehabilitate and revive Nazism. Veridica analyzed in 2021 a number of false narratives about the West allegedly encouraging the development of Nazi ideology in Ukraine and the erasure from the collective memory of the heroic and liberating image of the Soviet Union in World War II.
Against the background of international talk about the Russian military build-up at the borders with Ukraine, the Russian state press has repeated these false narratives about the West that “encourages Nazi ideology in Ukraine” and forgot about the heroism of the USSR (Russia) during the liberation of Europe from the Nazis.
PURPOSE: The purpose of these narratives is to show the public opinion in the post-Soviet space that following the rapprochement with the West and the break-up with the “Russian world”, Ukraine has become Nazi and dangerous for the neighboring states, and civilian lives are under threat by neo-Nazi paramilitaries, which are not controlled by the authorities.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The author of the article published by Ukraina.ru, which is part of the state media trust “Russia Today”, writes about Nazism flourishing in Ukraine without providing any arguments or evidence, apart from listing some crimes committed by former soldiers that returned from the ATO area in Donbass. After recalling the crimes reported by the Ukrainian press, the author concludes that Ukraine is a Nazi state, based on a far-right ideology, which enjoys people’s support. According to official statistics , there has actually been a drop in the level of crime in Ukraine since 2016, and the forces that officially declare themselves ultranationalist did not manage to cross the electoral threshold in the 2019 parliamentary elections.In other words, the theses of the narrative posted on the Ukraina.ru website not only do not illustrate Ukrainian Nazism, but are completely false. In reality, we cannot talk about any revival or rehabilitation of Nazism in the West or in Ukraine. Nazi ideology has been condemned and banned in Ukraine, as has communist ideology.
The thesis of the West encouraging Nazism in Ukraine is also not true, and the information about the “Western special services” supporting far-right groups is something that the author just made up. It should be noted that both Russian politicians and the Moscow state press describe any element of the post-Soviet national-linguistic or cultural renaissance as Nazi or neo-Nazi.
In practice, such narratives equate nationalism and / or the assumption of a national identity with Nazism. The Ukrainian nationalist movements are called Nazi because they insistently promote in the public space the idea of breaking ties with the geopolitical traditions of the “Russian world”. This is also the case for political forces in the Republic of Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, which are calling for a return to the ethnic roots from before the Soviet annexation of these territories, called by the pro-Kremlin press Nazi / fascist / xenophobic / traitor, etc.
Without bringing any evidence to support the false statements about Nazism in Ukraine, both the Russian press and high-ranking politicians in Moscow want to trigger negative emotions in the post-Soviet collective mentality. It should be noted that the “Law on the Condemnation of the Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) Regimes, and Prohibition of Propaganda of Their Symbols has been adopted in Ukraine, while in Russia Stalinism is currently being rehabilitated. The important role of Joseph Stalin in consolidating the Soviet Union is emphasized in Russian history textbooks, and the crimes he committed are described as being a “historical necessity”.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: The difficult integration of war veterans into society is an older topic of research in sociology and psychology. Demobilized military personnel often have difficulty returning to normal life and are affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and need specialized help. However, this is true for veterans in all countries, including the Russian. The latter's problems are ignored by Moscow or the state press; in fact, Veridica has recently written that mercenaries who fought in Donbass are becoming a burden to the Kremlin. They are tried and then extradited. They cannot integrate into Russian society, they organize themselves in various paramilitary groups, become elements of organized criminal groups, posing a danger to the authorities and public order. A representative case is the extradition of Oleg Snidinov, a criminal who fought in the troops of the self-proclaimed Lugansk Republic. Russia has decided to extradite him to Ukraine.
There are, in fact, followers of the far right in Ukraine, and some of them also fought in the Donbass, especially in the Azov battalion, which was formed as a separate militia and later incorporated into the National Guard. Politicians representing the far right, however, do not enjoy significant support and are not in power.
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