That's unfortunate. The fact that Ukrainians fight alongside neo Nazis and have done for years, is a key part of Putin's started justification for why it's a moral invasion. This sort of censorship has kept the West blind to this reality. I've seen quite a few comments in recent days saying how ridiculous it is for Putin to claim the Ukrainians support Naziism given that their president is a Jew, but the reality is, the Azov Battalion has been around for a while and they aren't subtle about their beliefs. It weakens the West when people criticize "state controlled media" in Russia whilst being totally unaware of what's happening on the ground in Ukraine.
Did Ukraine use Nazis to ethnically cleanse Russian speakers in regions which wanted independence? According to all Western media before a year ago: yes.
The media, whether Western or Russian, exists in order to rally support for the actions of the elite, usually by misrepresentation, oversimplification, and blatant lies. When Euromaidan was in progress, it was impossible to even hint that there was a presence of political groups with Nazi sympathies. You were immediately discredited as a pawn of Russian media. I have no idea why the emotional zeal. Of course, it was true, but the West needed support from the demos and downplayed anything that would hurt the geopolitical sparring match with Russia.
Ukraine in general has a history that has been unaddressed. Ukrainian collaboration with Nazis during WWII, genocide against Poles (which many continue to deny, downplay, or rationalize), and Western Ukrainian reverence for national heroes and militant groups entangled in these events (e.g., Stepan Bandera and UPA) remain taboo subjects. They're topics that will likely remain untouched as long as Ukraine is being bought over by Russia and the US.
I've noticed lots of commentators who seemingly couldn't point to Ukraine on a map before February have suggested that Ukraine's Nazi links are fabricated, when even mainstream media was reporting this before 2022.
It includes things such as Ukraine's police departments providing operational support to Nazi groups, and the groups' history of arming themselves with heavy weapons including missiles. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ukraine has a long history of directly supporting these groups. Implying either the Nazi groups don't exist or that they're not intertwined with government is opportunistic historical revisionism.
The West not only ignores the problem, but directly supports the Nazi groups through weapons shipments, propaganda lines and protection from censorship. [5] [6]
> Conversely they've been pretty effective at stopping information about their own disposition of forces being posted to social media, or at least it's not being retweeted anywhere I've seen.
I'm a bit twisted about this. In school, as a German, we were told that the Nazis only reported their wins, not their losses, and how this was such a terrible thing to do (I'm not saying Ukrainians are like Nazis of course.)
It this a competition of who is the real neo-Nazi? So even the mainstream media are a bunch of white supremacists without realising it?
Why are they giving a reason for Putin to carry on his so-called 'de-nazification' of Ukraine when the mainstream media are caught on air behaving like Nazis before and during the war? I can see why non-Ukrainians were barred from escaping and why the Azov Battalion would support that, whilst being cheered on by tech companies like Meta. Oh dear.
I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Can't wait for them to deny it and slap, 'manipulated media' on their own video interviews and then figure out a new way to suggest it is 'misleading' or it the whole tweet is a 'disinformation campaign'
Azov is one of the batallions there but your post is totally skewed. If your country is attacked and the KKK volunteer to fight, will you stop them from doing so?
Why should the western media focus on which troops fight on the Ukrainian side if we have a clear aggressor, the invading country of Russia. It is a bullshit narrative to say they are fighting Nazis. they are fighting Ukrainians, some of which may be Nazis, but so are some of the Russian troops.
That you demand western media acknowledge the absurd and made up casus belli of denazification is simply crazy. It means you bought into the Russian propaganda, whether you know it or not.
I find it funny you bring up Ukraine in this conversation, it is considered the 2nd most corrupt country in Europe only behind Russia[1], has a long history of far-right ideologies [2]. And recently during this conflict have supported multiple groups that use literal Nazi imagery, most notably the Azov Regiment, which the Ukraine government are telling us are totally not Nazis despite using a bunch of imagery(such as the Black Sun and the Wolfsangel) that would likely get you arrested in some of the other countries you mentioned. [3]
One of the things I've learned as an outsider while trying to distinguish between propaganda and reality vis a vis Ukraine is that the Nazis are pretty deniable.
> The fact that Ukrainians fight alongside neo Nazis and have done for years, is a key part of Putin's started justification for why it's a moral invasion.
There you go: [0].
> The Azov Battalion has been around for a while and they aren't subtle about their beliefs. It weakens the West when people criticize "state controlled media" in Russia whilst being totally unaware of what's happening on the ground in Ukraine.
That is what this manipulation is all about. Tying many supporters to be indirectly supporting (and funding) a neo-Nazi battalion which Putin is referring to as the 'denazification of Ukraine' and using that as an excuse to invade. Now he will try to fallaciously accuse everyone of supporting neo-Nazis. It is a very bizzare thought process and reason to try to come up with to seize another country but given the evidence of praising these groups by Facebook (Meta) and other news companies, does sort of weaken the west.
The Russian media will try to find (or manufacture) evidence of such support and will just point to this: [0] and the racism happening on blocking non-Ukrainians and threatening to shoot them: [1]. Overall, it looks like a competition of who is the real neo-Nazi.
This fuels the weak 'excuse' that Putin is trying to 'de-nazify' Ukraine by going after Azov Battalion and then they will see this and probably now say that 'Western media, tech companies are now supporting Neo-nazis'.
It doesn't help that non-Ukrainians escaping are getting abused when entering into another country. Maybe they never did matter to them in the first place and that just played into Putin's weak point.
But it seems that at this stage, they are both Neo-nazis anyway and social networks like Facebook, Twitter now support them.
Keep buying that Russian propaganda that Ukraine is rife with Nazi-ism. Every country in the western world has small contingents of Nazis, all less than 1% of the population. You are allowing that Russian BS to cloud your judgement. Also the they have had -jewish- leaders, that doesn't sound like much of a Nazi group to me lmfao
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