The Right Sector’s website and social media pages feature pictures of heavily armed, masked men. Such images have provided the Russian media with fodder for newscasts about extremism in Ukraine.
During the Soviet era, the idea of Ukrainian national sovereignty was purposely joined to the ultra-nationalist movement led by the OUN and the UPA as a way to discredit the idea of an independent Ukrainian state.
At the peak of their activities, the UPA had 40,000 members. In comparison, there were about 5 million Ukrainians in the Soviet army.
As for ultra-nationalists like the Right Sector, they are likely to just disappear as a political group, said Shekhovtsov. “The Ukrainian people have no taste for political extremism.”
Many baseless stories are repeated. The right-wing presence is exaggerated.
Since then, the rhetoric has only intensified on Russian television. In the last week, there have been claims that gangs of “unknown armed people” have crossed from Ukraine into Russia, without offering any evidence. There have also been suggestions that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian “refugees” have been forced to flee Ukraine for Russia, prompting a humanitarian crisis. (The pictures used by one Russian channel of border queues turned out to be routine queues at a Ukraine-Poland border.)
Moscow’s disinformation messages have included widely debunked conspiracy theories about US bioweapon labs in Ukraine, and pet themes on the American right that portray the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as an ally in backing traditional values, religion and family in the fight against “woke” ideas.
Although historians say Putin’s assertions about the need to liberate Ukraine from the grip of neo-Nazis and genocide against ethnic Russians in Ukraine are false propaganda, the repeated assertions from Putin and other Russian officials had at least one American politician questioning aid to Ukraine.
“Neo-Nazi, far right and xenophobic groups do exist in Ukraine, like in pretty much any other country, including Russia,” Finkel said. “They are vocal and can be prone to violence but they are numerically small, marginal and their political influence at the state level is non-existent. That is not to say that Ukraine doesn’t have a far-right problem. It does. But I would consider the KKK in the US and skinheads and neo-Nazi groups in Russia a much bigger problem and threat than the Ukrainian far right.”
Multiple experts on the region said the claim that Ukraine is corrupted by Nazis is false. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who received 73 percent of the vote when he was elected in 2019, is Jewish, and all far-right parties combined received only about 2 percent of parliamentary votes in 2019 — short of the 5 percent threshold for representation.
There is also no proof of any U.S.-run biological weapons labs in Ukraine. And Putin’s claims to be protecting Ukrainians from Nazis, and protecting ethnic Russians from genocide, are nonsense. Putin’s argument that far-right nationalists and Nazis control the government of Ukraine ignores the reality that President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish. Meanwhile, Putin’s trumped-up concern for native Russian speakers is based on a January 2022 provision requiring Ukrainian media publications to use the Ukrainian language. There is no proof, however, of any genocide against native Russian speakers in Ukraine.
How can we tell how large and influential the right-wing presence in Ukraine is? We need some kind of standard, not just inflammatory pictures and baseless claims.
Whether were bioweapons labs isn’t particularly relevant.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who received 73 percent of the vote when he was elected in 2019, is Jewish, and all far-right parties combined received only about 2 percent of parliamentary votes in 2019 — short of the 5 percent threshold for representation.
Zelensky was a comedian groomed by oligarchs (in particular Ihor Kolomoyskyi). He played a president on TV, and then ran for president on TV. This was planned out in advance. Zelensky wasn’t in control; he was an actor with no political experience, in way over his head and beholden to US comprador oligarchs, and his life is openly threatened by high-level Banderite fascists should he get out of line. And he’s quite wealthy now, an oligarch in his own right. He’s in no way a “servant of the people;” that’s an act played by an actor.
Your image of Ukraine and Ukrainians is exactly the image the US government and corporate media want you to have. That’s how they manufacture consent. They want you to imagine Ukraine as a happy, scrappy, proud, independent, brave, homogeneous, unified democracy of white Europeans, who were attacked for no reason while peacefully minding their own business. They want you to think that history began five years ago.
Your image of Ukraine and Ukrainians is exactly the image the US government and corporate media want you to have. That’s how they manufacture consent.
Your image of Ukraine and Ukrainians is exactly the image the Russian government and corporate media want you to have. That’s how they manufacture consent.
The far-right presence in Ukraine is drastically exaggerated to justify invasion.
Every other interview or photography from a high ranking Ukrainian soldier has a tattoo/patch or anything with nazi symbol. Drastically exaggerated my ass.
I think you’ve been fooled.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/5/20/ukraines-far-right-popular-or-propaganda
Were the fifteen or so western media outlets I linked to above also fooled, before suddenly going silent in 2022?
Here are a few more:
Many baseless stories are repeated. The right-wing presence is exaggerated.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/04/russian-propaganda-ukrainian-rumours-anger-hate-crimea
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/16/russia-disinformation-us-far-right-republicans-ukraine
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/the-facts-on-de-nazifying-ukraine/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/02/world/europe/ukraine-nazis-russia-media.html
https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/far-right-figures-are-justifying-russias-war-ukraine-and-some-cases-even
Instead of slinging slop at me, focus.
How can we tell how large and influential the right-wing presence in Ukraine is? We need some kind of standard, not just inflammatory pictures and baseless claims.
Whether were bioweapons labs isn’t particularly relevant.
Zelensky was a comedian groomed by oligarchs (in particular Ihor Kolomoyskyi). He played a president on TV, and then ran for president on TV. This was planned out in advance. Zelensky wasn’t in control; he was an actor with no political experience, in way over his head and beholden to US comprador oligarchs, and his life is openly threatened by high-level Banderite fascists should he get out of line. And he’s quite wealthy now, an oligarch in his own right. He’s in no way a “servant of the people;” that’s an act played by an actor.
Your image of Ukraine and Ukrainians is exactly the image the US government and corporate media want you to have. That’s how they manufacture consent. They want you to imagine Ukraine as a happy, scrappy, proud, independent, brave, homogeneous, unified democracy of white Europeans, who were attacked for no reason while peacefully minding their own business. They want you to think that history began five years ago.
Your image of Ukraine and Ukrainians is exactly the image the Russian government and corporate media want you to have. That’s how they manufacture consent.
The far-right presence in Ukraine is drastically exaggerated to justify invasion.
Every other interview or photography from a high ranking Ukrainian soldier has a tattoo/patch or anything with nazi symbol. Drastically exaggerated my ass.
It’s the image the BBC gave up until 2022. Are you saying the BBC are russian propagandists?