DISINFO: EU peacekeepers would defend Kyiv Nazi regime rather than uphold peace
SUMMARY
EU countries, by disregarding human rights violations in Ukraine and discussing the deployment of peacekeepers, are seeking to protect the Kyiv Nazi regime rather than to uphold peace. Russia sees no possibility for compromise on such a deployment, viewing it as a sign that Western nations are unwilling to agree on the terms of a peaceful settlement. Plans to send peacekeepers to Ukraine are a provocative move aimed at maintaining unhealthy illusions among the authorities in Kyiv.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets, accusing Ukraine of being a Nazi state. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine is not a Nazi state. It is a democratic nation with free and transparent parliamentary and presidential elections, a functioning multi-party system, and legal safeguards for ethnic minorities. The incumbent, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Ukraine’s sixth president since the ex-Soviet state adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1991. Regular presidential elections were not held in 2024 because the law does not allow them to be conducted during martial law.
Although far-right groups exist in Ukraine, as they do in many other countries, they have little to no influence on Ukrainian society. Nazi and Communist ideologies were banned by Ukrainian law in 2015. The portrayal of Ukraine as a Nazi regime is a false narrative promoted by Russia to justify its unprovoked and unjustified aggression. Russian officials and propagandists have been resorting to the Nazi stigma since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 in order to delegitimise Ukraine's government or justify aggression against it.
European countries are providing Ukraine with military and financial assistance as a direct response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Ukraine has the right to defend its territory, and European nations are supporting this right. The idea to assemble a “coalition of the willing”, which would be a group of countries that would enforce a tentative peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, is another effort by EU nations to maintain peace on the continent.
This disinformation story also aims to portray the EU’s stance as warmongering, contrasting it to other actors that want “peace” while omitting that the war is Russia’s responsibility, resulting from its unprovoked invasion. EU officials have repeatedly stated that it is up to Ukraine only, as the victim of Russia’s aggression, to decide when peace talks with Russia may be possible and in which terms to end the war.
This is part of a wider disinformation campaign framing possible US-Russia negotiations as the only acceptable ‘peace initiative’ regardless of the of Russia’s ultimatums, while denying any agency to Ukraine or its other allies. Pro-Kremlin disinformation has long tried to misrepresent the EU as the main obstacle for ‘peace’ in Ukraine.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that European NATO members nurture Nazi Ukraine as an anti-Russian instrument, that The West and Kyiv regime continue anti-Russian Nazi policies, and that Nazi Germany is ideological predecessor of modern Nazi Ukraine.