Russia has loosely justified the attack on Ukraine, for example, by the country’s excessive approach to the West, but also by neo-Nazism.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin has said it wants to remove the Nazis and drug addicts from Ukraine and its administration. The argument is also one of the many reasons why Russia invaded Ukraine with full force.
The argument is special for the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi is a Jew, and his relatives were killed by the Germans in World War II. However, Putin associates him with neo-Nazism, as well as the rest of the current regime in Ukraine.
Putin has not substantiated his drug claim in any way.
Russia has affixed a Nazi stamp to members of the Ukrainian regime who have been in the regime for the past eight years. Before 2014, Ukraine was much more pro-Russian, which the Russians, Putin or the Kremlin did not have to worry about, he points out. Washington Post (switch to another service).
In 2014, a pro-Russia government collapsed, and since then Ukraine has been ruled by a democratically elected administration.
The fact that the regime is no longer as pro-Russia as it used to be is most obviously the reason for the Nazi accusations.
The ferocious Nazi claims date back to World War II, when Soviet Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany. Some Ukrainian nationalists then embraced the Nazis to challenge the Soviet Union. According to historians, there was also some co-operation with the Nazis, as in many other countries.
Some of Ukraine’s current politicians have praised nationalists and their resistance to the Soviet Union during World War II, ignoring cooperation with the Nazis and documented crimes against Jews. It has irritated Russia and added impetus to the claim that there are Nazis in the Ukrainian regime.
For its part, Russia has also increased the role of the Soviet Union in defeating the Nazis. At the same time, the country has downplayed the cooperation of Soviet citizens with the Nazis in the persecution of Jews.
Putin has also claimed that Russia has been forced into hostilities in Ukraine. If Russia did nothing, the West and Ukraine would attack Russia, as Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in World War II, Putin has argued.
The attack has also been justified by the ongoing genocide in Russian-backed separatist areas in eastern Ukraine. There is no evidence of genocide, and so is the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has denied the allegation.