DISINFO: Ukrainian Nazis kill civilians
SUMMARY
Ukrainians are outright Nazis. They were killing civilians, including women and the elderly, in the town of Selidove in the East of Ukraine. Russian troops found traces of these executions.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation claim about Nazi Ukraine. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There is no evidence that the Ukrainian army is intentionally killing civilians while repelling Russia’s aggression. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that the Russian army and Russian-backed separatists are deliberately targeting civilians. Civilian deaths occur in any armed conflict, but credible investigations show that the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have been caused by Russian forces. Organisations like the UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented deliberate attacks on civilians, bombings of residential areas, hospitals, and schools, by Russian troops.
The accusation that Ukraine is run by Nazis is a recurring theme in Russian propaganda. Ukraine is a democratic country with a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose own family suffered under the Holocaust. While some far-right groups exist in Ukraine, they do not represent the government or the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The myth of ‘Nazi Ukraine’ has been widely used by Putin and pro-Kremlin outlets since Russia attacked Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. Learn more about the reasons behind the Kremlin's obsession with Nazism in the EUvsDisinfo analysis titled "Nazi east, Nazi west, Nazi over the cuckoo's nest" and "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that French and Polish soldiers committed crimes against civilians in Selidovo like in Bucha, Ukrainian neo-Nazis offer human sacrifices to pagan gods, that Ukrainian neo-Nazis are shooting residents in the Kursk region and the West remains silent, and that Ukrainian fascists kill civilians at point-blank range in Kursk, use orphans as human shields.