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How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis


In the months since Russian President Vladimir V. Putin called the invasion of Ukraine “denazification“The mission, the lie that the Ukrainian government and culture was filled with dangerous ‘Nazis’ became the central theme of Kremlin propaganda about the war.


Russian articles on Ukraine mention Nazism

Line chart of Russian articles on Ukraine shows that the number of mentions of Nazism increased significantly after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.





Articles mentioning Nazism spiked the day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Fewer articles on Ukraine were published after Russia withdrew from Kyiv, but the news returned as the fighting shifted to the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Articles mentioning Nazism spiked the day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Fewer articles on Ukraine were published following Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv, but the news returned as the fighting shifted to the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Articles mentioning Nazism spiked the day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Fewer articles on Ukraine were published after Russia withdrew from Kyiv, but the news returned as the fighting shifted to the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Reference articles

Nazism skyrocketed on

Russia invades Ukraine.

Fewer articles about Ukraine

published after Russia’s withdrawal

from Kyiv, but relevance has increased

again when the war turns

Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Reference articles

Nazism skyrocketed on

Russia invades Ukraine.

Fewer articles about Ukraine

published after Russia’s withdrawal

from Kyiv, but relevance has increased

again when the war turns

Donbas in eastern Ukraine.


Source: Semantic Visions

A dataset of nearly eight million articles on Ukraine collected from more than 8,000 Russian websites since 2014 shows that references to Nazism were relatively stable for eight years and then spiked. unprecedented levels on February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. They have remained high ever since.

Data, provided by Semantic image, a defense analysis firm, includes major Russian state media outlets along with thousands of smaller Russian websites and blogs. It makes a point about Russia’s efforts to justify its attack on Ukraine and maintain domestic support for the ongoing war by misrepresentation of Ukraine when overwhelmed by far-right extremists.

The news falsely claimed that Nazi Ukraine was using munitions as human shields, killing Ukrainian civilians and planning the genocide of the Russians.

Larissa Doroshenko, a researcher at Northeastern University who studies disinformation, said the strategy is most likely intended to justify what the Kremlin hopes will quickly overthrow the Ukrainian government. “It helps explain why they founded this new nation,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “Because the previous government was Nazi, so they had to be replaced.”

Many regional experts say claims that Ukraine was corrupted by the Nazis are untrue. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who received 73% of the vote when he was elected in 2019, is Jewish and all far-right parties combined received only about 2% of the parliamentary vote in 2019 – short of 5 % threshold representative.

“We accept in most Western democracies proportionality,” said Monika Richter, head of research and analysis at Semantic Visions and a member of the American Foreign Policy Council. far-right extremism is significantly higher.

Jeffrey Veidlinger, a professor of history and Judaism at the University of Michigan, says the popular Russian understanding of Nazism is based on the notion that Nazi Germany was the antithesis of the Soviet Union rather than about it. persecution of the Jews. “That’s why they can call a state with a Jewish president a Nazi state and it doesn’t seem to be at odds with them,” he said.


An announcer of a Russian TV program stands on a black background.  On one side are images of a contemporary far-right protest and on the other are historical images of a Nazi rally.


A presenter on Russia’s NTV, was under state control since 2001, pairing images of a far-right protest in Ukraine with historical footage of a Nazi rally in one Broadcast on April 3.

Despite the lack of evidence that Ukraine was dominated by Nazi Germany, the idea was successful among many Russians. The false claims about Ukraine may have started in the state media but smaller news sites have continued to amplify the messages.

Social media data provided by Zignal Labs showed a spike in mentions of Nazism in Russian-language tweets in line with an increase in Russian news media. “You can see that on Russian chat groups and in the comments that Russians make on articles,” Dr Veidlinger said. “I think many Russians really believe that this is a war against Nazism.”

He noted that the success of this propaganda campaign has deep roots in Russian history. Dr Veidlinger said: “The war against Nazism was truly the defining moment of the 20th century for Russia. “What they are doing now is a continuation of this great moment of national unity from the Second World War. Putin is trying to incite the populace to support the war.”

Mr. Putin alluded to that history in a speech on May 9 on the anniversary of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany on May 9. “You are fighting for our motherland so that no one will forget the lessons of the Second World War,” he said before a parade of thousands of Russian soldiers. “So there’s no place in the world for torturers, death squads and Nazis.”

A key feature of Russian propaganda is repetition, Ms. Richter said. “You just see the reflux over and over and over and over again.” In this case, that means repeating baseless accusations of Nazism. Since the invasion, 10 to 20 percent of articles about Ukraine have mentioned Nazism, according to Semantic Visions data.


Sharing articles in Russian media about Ukraine mentioning Nazism

A line graph shows that since Russia invaded Ukraine, a higher percentage of Russian articles about Ukraine mention Nazism.





References spike in 2021 on the Russian holiday of May 9, commemorating the defeat of

Nazi Germany.

The references spiked in 2021 on the Russian May 9 holiday commemorating the day Nazi Germany was defeated.


Source: Semantic Visions

Experts say linking Ukraine to Nazism may prevent cognitive dissonance among Russians when news of the war in places like Bucha permeable. “It helps them justify these atrocities,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “It helps create a black-and-white dichotomy – the Nazis are bad, we’re good, so we have moral rights.”

The tactic seems to work. Russians’ access to news sources unrelated to the Kremlin has been restricted since the government silent most independent media after the invasion. During the war, Russian citizens had repeat statement About Nationalist in interviews and in a poll published in May by the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, 74 percent expressed support for the war.


A collection of headlines from Russian news websites making false claims about Nazi Ukraine.






Headlines from the Russian news websites TASS, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vesti and Pravda show examples of Russian false stories about Nazism in Ukraine.

Part of what makes accusations of Nazism so useful to Russian propagandists is that Ukraine’s past involves Nazi Germany.

“There is a history of Ukrainian cooperation with Nazi Germany and Putin is trying to build on that history,” Dr Veidlinger said. “During the Second World War, there were parties in Ukraine that sought to cooperate with the Germans, especially against the Soviet Union.”

Experts say this history makes it easier for Russian media to draw connections between the real Nazis and modern far-right groups to give the impression that contemporary groups are larger and more influential than they are.

The Azov Battalion, a regiment of the Ukrainian Army with roots in radical political groups, has been used by Russian media since 2014 as an example of far-right support in Ukraine. Analysts say the Russian media’s depiction of the group exaggerates the extent to which its members hold neo-Nazi views.

Russian television regularly returns segments to the battalion in April when the group’s members protect a steel mill in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“For Russia, it was a perfect opportunity,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “It was like, ‘We’ve been smearing them for so long and they’re still there, they’re still fighting, so we can justify our Mariupol killing strategy because we need to. destroy these Nazis.'”

Russia’s false claim that its invasion of Ukraine was an attempt to “differentiate” the country has been criticized by Anti-Defamation Leaguethe American Holocaust Memorial Museum and Dozens of scholars on Nazismamong others.

Dr Veidlinger said: “The current state of Ukraine is not a Nazi state. “I think what Putin is really afraid of is the spread of democracy and pluralism from Ukraine to Russia. But he knew that accusing Nazism would unify his population.”



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