I hate Putin and his regime in Russia right now but Ukraine (atleast from the pictures I’m seeing) seems to be overrun with explicitly neo nazi groups. In my ideal scenario they both take each out without effecting the actual EU.
A small side-story: In one of those groups I told them I am Turkish (as they really kindly asked the non-Russians following the group to state their reasons for doing so) and out of nowhere they went 15 mins about how disgusting my race is and when I asked how is that different than the behavior of alleged nazis in Ukraine, they banned me :)
How do I see "a lot of them"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhg8AXXHoRE
I did find some photos of supposedly nazi-symbol-wearing Ukrainian solders but I didn't recognize the symbol before reading the explanation, maybe they didn't too?
Also, I found some photos of Russian soldiers wearing such symbols too:
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fighter-neo-nazi-symb...
The thread has over 33k upvotes but has since then been removed by its author. You can find the original image online by looking up the url on webarchives.
The image shows mercenary fighters holding flags in front of a landmark. There are two Chechen flags, one flag depicting a skull associated with a certain ideology and one censored flag.
So is the US. Rising fascism is simply the state of the world right now.
To pick the first story at the top of my feed right now: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/jan-6-camp-auschwitz-h...
Least we forget that during that period Nazi death squads killed more people in the break away regions than have so far died in this war. The last time US citizens were killed abroad in large numbers by the army of another country was the Alamo and we still remember it.
Ukraine was smart not to get rid of Azov. Putin invaded once for made up reasons, no reason to think he won't do it again. Ukraine's understanding of fascist Russia's true self was correct.
That sounds like a win no matter what.
In the abstract, sure, we all want to purge Nazis. But not if you're saying Nazis == Ukrainians. If you defined Nazis to mean Putin's Wagner Group (headed by a guy with SS tattoo), then sure, I'd agree.
What's so cynical about all this is how they've undermined our language and our ability to talk about fascism (as exemplified by modern Russia) by coopting the linguistic tools that we use (the word Nazi) to do so. It's depressingly effective propaganda.
Somehow the same people who thought the OK symbol was a secret white supremacist dog whistle are now coming out of the wood work saying that akshually it's only 40% of the Ukrainian army that has Nazi tattoos and it's fine.
And as we've already been through, Ukraine has no ability to pick and choose who is allowed to defend them from multiple Russian invasions. They are significantly smaller. Such luxuries only apply to strong countries that aren't being invaded. You keep dishonestly comparing Ukraine (small country being invaded) to the US (country not being invaded).
If Ukraine wasn't under constant threat of invasion from Russia, then I'd be the first to criticize their decision making around Azov.
It's pretty difficult for me to see how Ukraine can be "overrun with explicitly neo nazi groups" with that amount of support for their right-wing parties.
Unless of course you live in Russia's fantasy world where a Jewish president can be a neo-nazi
Without arguing about the rest of the comment, Russian narrative sees Nazis as a group that want to exterminate Russians, based on what actual Nazis in WW2 did when they attacked. And this "Jewish president" who banned Russian language, banned almost all political parties and organizations of russian-speaking people and sent an army to punish the rebellion in Donbas fits the Russian definition of Nazi pretty well.
That's an invention by Sergey Lavrov. Of course Ukraine didn't ban the native language of 30% of it's population.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/08/sergey-lav...
> banned almost all political parties and organizations of russian-speaking people
Ukraine did in fact ban pro-Russian parties. While I must admit I don't particularly like the idea of banning any parties in a democracy, it is understandable why you would ban parties and organizations supporting the enemy while you are at war.
This is, however, a long shot from the claim the he banned almost all political parties and organizations of russian-speaking people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#Ana...
There is a grain of truth in your statement though: Russian narrative does define Nazis differently from the rest of the world (and indeed, from Hitler). It defines everyone that doesn't wish to be subjugated by Russia as Nazis.
But generally people don't seem to have much problem with Jews (at least publicly). Middle-aged people and older don't like homosexuals, but the younger generation is totally LGBQ-friendly, albeit not sure about 'T'.
Black people aren't revered or hated- if anything they're so rare that they're either a subject of curiosity or ignored when walking by on the street.
WW2 never left the public consciousness. Older people remember cowering from Nazis and seniors remember fighting them.
It's not "overrun" with Neo Nazi groups. Ya they exist though, but they don't seem to have much sway if any at all.
Far-right political parties only got ~2% of the votes in elections. Not enough for even a single seat in Parliament.
If there still are any Nazis in Ukraine, their influence is much smaller than the far-right factions in Poland or France.
It's so ironic that this thread about purported Ukrainian propaganda is so thick with Kremlin propaganda.
The only good outcome is a peace agreement.
I'm not saying you are one, but this opening "I hate Putin/Russia/etc. but..." is typical opening line of Kremlin trolls.