Opinion: There’s hypocrisy in Russia accusing Ukraine of Nazism

Barbara Kuznetsova, Staff Writer

Credit: Liam Killian

Russia started a war with Ukraine with the belief that Ukraine needs “denazification” and “demilitarisation.” On the national TV, propagandists talk about Nazis in Ukraine and they force opinions on Russians who do not analyze information and believe propaganda. 

The word “fascism” left an indelible mark on many nations, and Russia is not an exception. According to Openculture.com, Umberto Eco, Italian political and social commentator, provided 14 common features in fascism and Russia has every single one of them. Classifying “disagreement as treason,” is certainly a quality that Russia possesses, to name just one. But Russia still claims that fascists and Nazis inhabit Ukraine. 

Ironically, Russia started developing Nazism itself. Russia’s national news outlet Russia Today, is where they spread their propaganda stating that Ukraine should not exist. President Putin said that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation. The government lies that Russian soldiers did not kill civilians in Bucha and that Ukrainians did, while it is seen on the photos from Satellites released by the New York Times that corpses of civilians lied on the street weeks before the Russian army left the town. Russians used a chemical weapon in Mariupol against the Ukrainian army and civilians, but they still deny it, saying that it was a provocation and a fake by the Ukrainian army. 

Russia, whose biggest pride is resistance to Germany in World War II, is now furious that the Ukrainian army does not lay down weapons and stop protecting Mariupol. On Monday, Russia bombed the Azovstal, one of the largest steel rolling companies in Ukraine, with bunker-buster bombs. They knew that at least a thousand civilians were hiding there, but the Russian army was determined to burn Mariupol to the ground. 

Several days ago, a Russian warship Moskva sank, and the Russian government still says that the crew was evacuated. According to The Guardian, there were approximately five hundred people on that ship. Every day parents of soldiers contact journalists and say that their children disappeared after the ship sank. They disappeared at sea when the ship sank, insinuating that they drowned, but the Russian government claims that everyone is safe. These people performed bombings of many Ukrainian cities, but their families still deserve to know what happened to their children/parents/siblings even if they committed war crimes. The Russian government stays silent. 

Contrary to what Russia says, Nazism is not in Ukraine but in Russia. The cult of war persuaded Russians that they are the most important nation in the world, and at the annual parade dedicated to the end of WWII, millions of people say, “We can do it again!” But what do they want to do again? Millions of people dead in the whole world? Severe PTSD in soldiers and survivors of bombing? Is that what they want to repeat? Wars are the most horrible events that can happen to humanity. What is going on in Ukraine is genocide by fascist Russia that slowly turns Nazist. It is not Ukraine who requires denazification, it’s Russia.