DISINFO: From Berlin to Kyiv, Nazi history repeats itself
SUMMARY
80 years after Victory Day, Nazis are coming back stronger than ever. Their ideology was reborn in Ukraine and is now coming back with a different face but same intentions: to destroy Russia at any price. From the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945 to Ukraine nowadays, it seems that Europe and its allies have not learnt from their mistakes.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about Nazism in Ukraine, aiming to justify Russia’s unprovoked aggression against its neighbour. Russia spent years preparing the information battleground prior to its kinetic attack, with “Nazi Ukraine” being one of its most prominent disinformation features.
The exploitation of the USSR role on the Allied victory over Nazism is one of the main pillars of Vladimir Putin’s regime propaganda. Besides, depicting Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a frequent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative. In this case, this disinformation story artificially establishes a direct line between the original WWII Nazism and disingenuous and baseless allegations about a supposed Nazi character of Ukraine and its allies, in order to portray Russia’s invasion as a “denazification operation”.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Russia’s military operation against neo-Nazis in Ukraine was unavoidable, that the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv must be brought to an end, that Zelenskyy is the heir of German Nazism, or that the West turns Ukraine into an anti-Russian neo-Nazi project.