From the LinkedIn page of Roman Sheremeta
Mar 21
A favorite propaganda story that russians and pro-russian trolls like to repeat is about “neo-nazis” and a “large far-right movement” in Ukraine. The propagandists will throw the names of Stepan Bandera, the Right Sector, Azov Battalion, or Svoboda Party.
The tactic used by russians is directly from the propaganda master himself, Goebbels, to whom people often attribute the quote: “accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.” Yes, the photo is actually from russia, taken during the National Unity Day in Moscow. But instead of exchanging photos, let me point out two objective facts about Ukrianian far-right movement:
Fact 1. It is very likely, there is a much larger far-right movement in your own country than in Ukraine. Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far-right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries’ politics during the decline and fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national electoral support for far-right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3% of the popular vote. Far-right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single-mandate districts, and no far-right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5% of the popular vote in an election. Just for comparison, the support of far-right parties in European countries, such as Italy, France, Sweden, is always in double digits.
Fact 2. Several years ago, Pew Research [1] asked 56,000 of responders whether they agree that “our culture is superior to others”. The most chauvinistic among the Eastern European countries was… russia(!) – over 69%. Ukraine was among the least chauvinistic countries, similar to Lithuania and Latvia, and much lower than Poland. The highest score of any country across Europe was actually Greece, where 89% of people agreed with the statement.
You can add other arguments, such as the Ukrainian President is Jewish, that people from all over the world have joined the Ukrainian army, that russia has been systematically spreading lies and fabricated photos about Ukrainian far-right movement [2]. But no matter how you twist the russian propaganda – it is a plain lie. They accuse others of who they really are.
References:
Reply from Martin Vrecko:
Yes and while the bribed Western politcians, journalists and professors helped Moscow spread these lies, they tried to hide these existance of these Russian groups >> https://lnkd.in/dGKvGhNT
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Much Azov about nothing: How the ‘Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ canard fooled the world:
These lies have been standard fare with ruskie trolls since our CNN days, back in 2014. They have been disproven so many times, that this topic has a real yawn-factor. It’s also easy to prove that mafia land itself is a hotbed of fascism, in the population and in its “government”.