How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis By Charlie SmartJuly 2, 2022

In the months since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called the invasion of Ukraine a “denazification” mission, the lie that the government and culture of Ukraine are filled with dangerous “Nazis” has become a central theme of Kremlin propaganda about the war.

Russian articles about Ukraine that mention Nazism

A data set of nearly eight million articles about Ukraine collected from more than 8,000 Russian websites since 2014 shows that references to Nazism were relatively flat for eight years and then spiked to unprecedented levels on Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. They have remained high ever since.

The data, provided by Semantic Visions, a defense analytics company, includes major Russian state media outlets in addition to thousands of smaller Russian websites and blogs. It gives a view of Russia’s attempts to justify its attack on Ukraine and maintain domestic support for the ongoing war by falsely portraying Ukraine as being overrun by far-right extremists.

News stories have falsely claimed that Ukrainian Nazis are using noncombatants as human shields, killing Ukrainian civilians and planning a genocide of Russians.

The strategy was most likely intended to justify what the Kremlin hoped would be a quick ouster of the Ukrainian government, said Larissa Doroshenko, a researcher at Northeastern University who studies disinformation. “It would help to explain why they’re establishing this new country in a sense,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “Because the previous government were Nazis, therefore they had to be replaced.”

Multiple experts on the region said the claim that Ukraine is corrupted by Nazis is false. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who received 73 percent of the vote when he was elected in 2019, is Jewish, and all far-right parties combined received only about 2 percent of parliamentary votes in 2019 — short of the 5 percent threshold for representation.

“We tolerate in most Western democracies significantly higher rates of far-right extremism,” said Monika Richter, head of research and analysis at Semantic Visions and a fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

The common Russian understanding of Nazism hinges on the notion of Nazi Germany as the antithesis of the Soviet Union rather than on the persecution of Jews specifically said Jeffrey Veidlinger, a professor of history and Judaic studies at the University of Michigan. “That’s why they can call a state that has a Jewish president a Nazi state and it doesn’t seem all that discordant to them,” he said.

Despite the lack of evidence that Ukraine is dominated by Nazis, the idea has taken off among many Russians. The false claims about Ukraine may have started on state media but smaller news sites have gone on to amplify the messages.

Social media data provided by Zignal Labs shows a spike in references to Nazism in Russian language tweets that matches the uptick in Russian news media. “You see it on Russian chat groups and in comments Russians are making in newspaper articles,” said Dr. Veidlinger. “I think many Russians actually believe this is a war against Nazism.”

He noted that the success of this propaganda campaign has deep roots in Russian history. “The war against Nazism is really the defining moment of the 20th century for Russia,” Dr. Veidlinger said. “What they’re doing now is in a way a continuation of this great moment of national unity from World War II. Putin is trying to rile up the population in favor of the war.”

Mr. Putin alluded to that history in a speech on May 9 for the Russian holiday commemorating victory over Nazi Germany. “You are fighting for our motherland so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II,” he said to a parade of thousands of Russian soldiers. “So that there is no place in the world for torturers, death squads and Nazis.”

A key feature of Russian propaganda is its repetitiveness, Ms. Richter said. “You just see a constant regurgitation and repackaging of the same stuff over and over again.” In this case, that means repeating unfounded allegations about Nazism. Since the invasion, 10 to 20 percent of articles about Ukraine have mentioned Nazism, according to the Semantic Visions data.

Experts say linking Ukraine with Nazism can prevent cognitive dissonance among Russians when news about the war in places like Bucha seeps through. “It helps them justify these atrocities,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “It helps to create this dichotomy of black and white — Nazis are bad, we are good, so we have the moral right.”

The tactic appears to work. Russians’ access to news sources not tied to the Kremlin has been curtailed since the government silenced most independent media outlets after the invasion. During the war, Russian citizens have echoed claims about Nazism in interviews, and in a poll published in May by the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, 74 percent expressed support for the war.

Part of what makes accusations of Nazism so useful to Russian propagandists is that Ukraine’s past is entangled with Nazi Germany.

“There is a history of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis, and Putin is trying to build upon that history,” Dr. Veidlinger said. “During the Second World War there were parties in Ukraine that sought to collaborate with the Germans, particularly against the Soviets.”

Experts said this history makes it easy for the Russian media to draw connections between real Nazis and modern far-right groups to give the impression that the contemporary groups are larger and more influential than they are.

The Azov Battalion, a regiment of the Ukrainian Army with roots in ultranationalist political groups, has been used by the Russian media since 2014 as an example of far-right support in Ukraine. Analysts said the Russian media’s portrayal of the group exaggerates the extent to which its members hold neo-Nazi views.

Russian television regularly featured segments on the battalion in April when members of the group defended a steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“For Russia, it was a perfect opportunity,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “It was like, ‘We’ve been smearing them for so long and they’re still there, they’re still fighting, so we can justify our tactics of destroying Mariupol because we need to destroy these Nazis.’”

Russia’s false claim that its invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to “denazify” the country has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and dozens of scholars of Nazism, among others.

“The current Ukrainian state is not a Nazi state by any stretch of the imaginiation,” Dr. Veidlinger said. “I would argue that what Putin is actually afraid of is the spread of democracy and pluralism from Ukraine to Russia. But he knows that the accusation of Nazism is going to unite his population.”

  • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    And yet the NYT can barely manage to get a photo of a Ukrainian soldier without a Sonnenrad or Wolfsangel. There is clearly a Nazi undercurrent among influential militants and these same outlets were falling over themselves to describe that situation for 8 years - until it became “Russian propaganda”

    Notably absent from this article is any discussion of the Nazi and Nazi-adjascent elements emerging with Euromaidan, the roles served by Right Sector and the Azov Batallion (etc), the ethnostate-proximal policy changes. But they found plenty of space to uncritically quote “defense” think tank ghouls.

        • AJB_l4u@lemm.eeOP
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          1 year ago

          emerging in Maidan ? are you for real how many people do you know that got to be there i know a few, all of them fought against a government that promised them one thing but then Mr Putin call upon the government to not sign the agreement and do an agreement with Russia, when people hated the idea of getting closer with Russia. and that was after promising to not fiddle around in Ukraine politics, so after that president run away to Russia with bags full of money and getting under the protection of Putin, there was a thing called elections, and Russia recognised those election, after that there got to be more election and Mr Putin accepted again the election and had meeting with zelenskyy personally, guess that having a free democratic elected government in a neighbour country in not in the idea of the kremlin

            • AJB_l4u@lemm.eeOP
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              1 year ago

              there are neo Nazi groups in all the countries, please can Russia attack my country or are the scared and with the tail between the legs because we would glassed Russia till glass turn to glass again, FFS grow up grow a pair and start saying the truth, imperialistic movement in Russia wants to grab all the land they can, even the Russian politicians already saying that, don’t invade another country with lies, and hope for love, Russia will be nothing like it is now, get them all out of Europe, build up a wall around Russia border with Europe and let them stay in that side of the world, that’s why all the refuges in the world are doing miles walking to stay in Russia, its a wonderful country where even the Russians want to run away, stop with the lies and changing history, stop with the pretending

          • ☭ Blursty ☭
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            1 year ago

            Mr Putin call upon the government to not sign the agreement and do an agreement with Russia

            This is yankprop. You were lied to mate. here’s the truth with citations.

            In 2013, half of Ukraine wanted to be part of the EU. The American sponsored and led coup was staged because Yanukovych refused to enslave his people to the US financial capitalists, the puppet they illegally installed, Yatsenyuk, signed the IMF loan. Just like Yanukovych predicted, the required “shock therapy” crippled the Ukrainian economy. In 2013, Ukraine’s GDP was 190 billion USD. By 2014 its GDP plummeted to 133.5 billion USD. And by 2015 its GDP withered to 91.5 billion USD and its inflation ballooned to a hair shy of 50%.

            Now they’re even more untold billions in debt to America. The fascist dictator comprador Zelensky has been asset stripping what remains. Three large multinational companies Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto have already bought 17 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land from the regime. That was in May by the way, it’s likely much more now. This is more than 60% of the total agricultural land in Ukraine. The main shareholders of these three companies are Vanguard, Blackrock, Blackstone. He’s been appearing on the New York stock market ringing the opening bell and wrote an OP-ED in the NYT inviting more vampires in to take what’s left. This is what imperialism is. This was part of the purpose of the war. Theother part, to weaken Russia, has backfired.

            • AJB_l4u@lemm.eeOP
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              1 year ago

              https://www.dw.com/en/russia-makes-15-billion-gas-discount-commitments-to-ukraine/a-17303930

              Russia dips in for Ukraine 12/17/2013December 17, 2013 Russia will extend a $15-billion loan to Ukraine, and will also lower the price of gas supplies to their neighbors. But a free-trade agreement has not been discussed, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

              Russia will extend a $15-billion loan to Ukraine, and will also lower the price of gas supplies to their neighbors. But a free-trade agreement has not been discussed, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

              Putin and his Ukraine counterpart, Viktor Yanukovych, met in Moscow on Tuesday, with mass protests still going on in Kyiv over the government’s decision to shelve talks with the European Union over an association agreement.

              Having indicated he would be open to re-igniting negotiations should the EU up its financial support to the Ukraine, Yanukovych has now secured credit from Putin. As well as Russia’s investment in Ukraine’s government bonds, Putin also agreed to cut the price of gas deliveries to their neighbors by around a third.

              “The Russian government made a decision to invest part of the National Welfare fund to the amount of $15 billion in Ukrainian government securities,” Putin told reporters after talks.

              The prospect of Ukraine joining the Customs Union also including Belarus and Kazakhstan was not discussed, said Putin. Russia had been accused of putting pressure on Ukraine to sign the Customs Union deal instead of the association agreement with the EU. The latter would put Ukraine a step closer to joining the EU bloc.

              Steinmeier critical at inauguration

              The meeting on Tuesday in the Kremlin came two days after the European Union suspended talks on an association deal with Ukraine. Putin and Yanukovych had said prior to Tuesday’s meeting that the Customs Union would not be on the agenda, a claim the Ukrainian opposition met with skepticism.

              “I would like to calm everyone down, today we have not discussed the issue of Ukraine joining the Customs Union at all,” Putin said.

              Yanukovych added: “The implementation of this action plan will substantially deepen our strategic cooperation in many areas,” he said.

              The move drew criticism from Germany’s new foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who accused Russia of being opportunistic.

              “It is scandalous how Russia used Ukraine’s economic plight in order to prevent the signing of the association agreement with the European Union. Just as scandalous is the violent behavior of the Ukrainian security forces against peaceful demonstrators,” Steinmeier said in his inaugural speech. He also acknowledged, however, that the EU’s “financial and economic package … fell far short of what was needed to keep Ukraine competitive and bind it economically to Europe.”

              Protestors remain at Kyiv’s Maidan - also known as Independence Square - in an established camp that has withstood raids from police. On Sunday, the anti-government demonstrators again showed their strength of numbers, with the opposition estimating that 300,000 took to the streets in central Kyiv.

              Yanukovych’s government has countered by bussing in thousands of supporters from eastern Ukraine, but they number far less than those calling for new leadership in the capital. Ukraine’s president held round-table talks with opposition leaders on Friday, suggesting an amnesty for demonstrators who had been arrested in protests.

              He has also suspended the mayor of Kyiv, Oleksandr Popov, and several other high-ranking security and police officials over the violence that marred protests on November 30.

              ph/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

              • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Having indicated he would be open to re-igniting negotiations should the EU up its financial support to the Ukraine, Yanukovych has now secured credit from Putin. As well as Russia’s investment in Ukraine’s government bonds, Putin also agreed to cut the price of gas deliveries to their neighbors by around a third.

                All seems pretty reasonable to me, maybe if they let that deal go through instead of inviting more NATO influence onto Russia’s doorstep they would not have felt so threatened as to start a costly military engagement that does not materially benefit either side except for pushing out western backed agents.

                Then of course there is all the military aggression against the people in eastern Ukraine that were also dissatisfied with the results of the coup in 2014.

                You are pathetic.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It’s better than that. This dude just copied and pasted some picture that’s probably going around Hexbear.

        His own articles show Russia lying about Ukraine being Nazis, in 2014! He didn’t even read the first two sentences of this one:

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955

        Ever since Ukraine’s February revolution, the Kremlin has characterised the new leaders in Kiev as a “fascist junta” made up of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, set on persecuting, if not eradicating, the Russian-speaking population.

        This is demonstrably false. Far-right parties failed to pass a 5% barrier to enter parliament, although if they had banded together, and not split their vote, they would have probably slipped past the threshold.

        Better read more theory Lenin; the facts are against you.