Yes, there ARE Nazis in Ukraine
And NO, there are no “good” Nazis
The fact that there are Nazis in Ukraine is taken for granted by anyone who has 1.) done any actual research or 2.) actually been to Ukraine.
This is indisputable fact and it has been covered not just in Russian media, but even by mainstream western media. Though western media does its best to justify the existence of these fascists, or minimize their actual numbers, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that there are militarized Nazis in Ukraine, that they are well armed, and that there are thousands of them.
Despite this being established fact, I continually hear people arguing vociferously that 1.) there are no Nazis in Ukraine, or 2.) there are very few Nazis in Ukraine or 3.) they are “good” Nazis.
In my comments online, I have personally been ganged up on by “woke” liberal trolls who have mocked me for posting actual photos of Nazis killing people in eastern Ukraine. They called me a “Kremlin propagandist” even when I was sharing articles from such “Russian” media as TIME Magazine, VICE and CNN.
It seems quite clear that most people in the US, UK and EU and other allied countries are so deluded by decades of Russophobic propaganda that they refuse to accept reality. If a real-life, honest-to-God, goose-stepping Nazi wearing SS symbols and swastikas encountered one of today’s “woke” liberals and outright said that he was a Nazi, an argument might ensue that would look something like this:
That there are, in fact, Nazis in Ukraine has been true since World War II, when the German Wehrmacht invaded Ukraine and occupied it, mass-executing Jews, Communists, Russians, and anyone thought to be sympathetic to the USSR. But other Ukrainians celebrated the Nazi victory over Poland and their region of the Soviet Union, and they formed the first Ukrainian Nazi regiment. This regiment later became known as the Ukrainian National Army (UNA), under the German High Command (OKH). They numbered around 220,000 volunteers and they fought with the Wehrmacht throughout Europe including Austria. When the war ended, the UNA surrendered to the British and US.
But the roots of Ukrainian Nationalism and it’s inseparable twin, Nazism, never died out and the idea of racially superior Germanic Ukrainians has now flowered again.
What is essential to understand is that many Ukrainians in World War II did not regard the Nazis as their enemy. It was the Soviet Union and Poland they despised while “uncle Hitler” was viewed as a liberator. In short, this is why Ukrainians today do not despise Nazis like people in Poland, the UK, France, Italy or other countries that were invaded or occupied.
With Maidan in 2014 and the resurrection of Ukrainian nationalism, neo-Nazi militias which had previously been the butt of jokes were elevated by the US-backed puppet-regime in Kiev, and given the status of “National Guard.” Azov Battalion, Pravyj Sektor (“Right Sector”), Svoboda (“Freedom”) and others routinely held torchlight marches and parades in Ukrainian cities including the capital, Kiev. Stepan Bandera, a Nazi-sympathizer, collaborator and mass murderer, was resurrected as a hero of the state. Statues of Soviet heroes defeating the Nazis were torn down or vandalized, and statues of Stepan Bandera were erected. Streets were named after him. Postage stamps were issued with his image.
If you mention Stepan Bandera online, the “woke” crowd will quickly come to his defense, either insisting he was not a Nazi at all, or whitewashing the evil he did while in service to the Wehrmacht. Yet even Wikipedia, which is admittedly biased against Russian views, says: “His organization perpetrated many crimes, including hundreds of thousands of murders, counterfeiting, and kidnapping.” It further describes him as “an antisemite” who believed that “Jewish assimilation is not possible.”
Though Bandera died in 1959, his racist ideas lived on. In fact, under Ukrainian law today, there are two kinds of Ukrainians. Those who are considered desirable, the Germanic Ukrainians, Tatars and Karaites, and those who are considered racially inferior: Russians, Magyars and Roma people, who are not allowed to speak their own languages in public. This “Law of the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” was signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky in July of 2021, making racial segregation state law.
“But how can Zelensky be a Nazi if he is Jewish?”
This question, often asked disingenuously, will be posed any time you try to talk about Ukraine’s Nazi problem. The answer to this apparent contradiction is quite simple: Money and power. Zelensky has received millions of dollars stored in offshore accounts according to the Pandora Papers, and reportedly owns a $34 million mansion in Florida. You don’t have to be a member of MENSA to deduce that he didn’t earn that money by serving as the president of an impoverished country.
If you still can’t understand why a Jew would become a Nazi, please consider that even in Israel there have been neo-Nazi groups (though you may need a VPN to access this video). And you might remember that during WW2, many Jews accepted positions of authority given to them by the Nazis and even killed other Jews just to keep themselves alive a little longer. Zelensky’s life might not be in immediate danger (rumor has it he is safe in Poland even though “officially” he is still in Kiev), but it’s clear enough that
If it walks like a Nazi and talks like a Nazi, it’s a Nazi.
Also, if it wears Nazi symbols, it’s a Nazi.
After Russian troops entered Ukraine in February 2022, social media platforms including Facebook, which had previously banned all use of Nazi symbols as hate speech, began allowing it for Ukrainians. The “woke” crowd seems to have fallen in love with these “brave Ukrainian freedom fighters” even though they wear hate symbols listed by the Anti-Defamation League. Symbols which they would not dream of wearing to yoga class or brunch. People who would never fly a flag with a swastika on it are perfectly comfortable posting SS symbols on their Facebook wall, provided they are yellow and blue.
How, you ask, do they square this? Being against racism and hate speech but being okay with Nazi symbols? Simple. They just deny that the Nazis exist. They make like Bob Ross and just paint right over the things they don’t want to see.
Though even Israeli media has reported that Ukraine’s neo-Nazis go around handing out copies of Mein Kampf to people, it all just gets pretended away. Kind of like it was pretended away in Germany prior to 1939. Despite heavy propaganda, many Germans knew about the death camps. But since it was only “untermenschen” being killed there, it didn’t really bother them much.
This time, it has been ethnic Russians and Romani who have been systematically exterminated by the Ukrainian Nazis for 8 years. Because they were “undesirable” Ukrainians. And, just like in 1939, those who were not being terrorized or murdered by the Nazis just pretend it all away because after all, it’s not happening to them.
This poem, written by a German Lutheran about the apathy of German clergy and intellectuals during the rise of the Third Reich seems as fitting now as it was then.
I will leave you with these haunting words.
