Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian President was question about Russian accusations of nazism within the Eastern European country. Prior to the ongoing ground invasion that he ordered, Russian President Vladimir Putin cited a need for “denazification,” listing the decapitating of the current Ukrainian government as part of that mission.
Zelensky responded to those charges in detail for the first time while speaking to Fareed Zakaria on CNN, noting some of the absurdities involved and also discussing what Putin’s claim means in practice.
If he takes serious note of this statement, then he may be capable to take extremely horrendous actions. This would mean that his game is over. Ukrainian President Zelensky responds to Russian President Putin claiming ‘denazification,’ in order to justify the invasion of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/pv2tn8Fgur
— CNN (@CNN) March 20, 2022
Zelensky would make an odd Nazi, considering he’s Jewish, and the idea that the Ukrainian government is overrun with Nazis is a position that lacks any real evidence. There is indeed a military unit in Ukraine that has its origins from nazism. This was done as an anti-communist counter force to the communist regime of 20th century. What most of its individual members believe or practice today is a bit murkier, but it’s safe to assume some objectionable thought still exists among its ranks.
I say that to say that it’s not completely false that there are Nazi elements within Ukraine. Still, that doesn’t at all represent a defensible reason for Russia to invade. I think that’s the context that must remain front and center, when having any discussion on this matter. Do you think the Ukrainian government should do more in combating nazism inside its own borders? Perhaps they should, but that’s not Russia’s job, nor are Russian claims meant to be anything other than a pretense for aggression against a sovereign neighbor.
Republicans in the United States have a pretty good understanding of what it’s like to be discredited and maligned as “Nazis” when such an ideology is only represented among a tiny subset of the American public (and few of those people even hold mainline GOP thought). Donald Trump does not belong to the Nazi Party. Volodymyr Zelensky does not belong to the Nazi Party. These generalizations are used to assign collective guilt large numbers of people to justify bad actions against them.
That’s dangerous in any context, and it’s especially dangerous in Ukraine at the moment, which was the main point Zelensky settled on in this interview. Yes, it’s laughable to suggest that Ukraine is so eaten up with nazism that it justifies a Russian invasion, but it’s also an incredibly serious matter when you have an invading force with the mission to essentially cleanse a population of a supposed ideology. Right-leaning Americans say that if you call a political opponent Nazism, it is possible to justify any action in modern society to them, even violence.
To wrap this up, it is my belief that you can’t look at foreign countries the same way you look at the United States. While there may be cultural differences between the two countries, there are vast practical differences as to how they can govern themselves. Ukraine is not perfect, and I think it’s pointless to obfuscate the issues there. Russia illegally invades a sovereign nation, but that is not the point. There will be a time to argue about Ukraine’s internal affairs when that invasion ends. Until then, Russia remains the “bad” party in all this, and no amount of social media banter about supposed nazism will change that.
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