Ukraine: Putin’s ‘denazification’ claims dismantled by Atkins

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BBC News presenter Ros Atkins has dismantled Kremlin propaganda attempting to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has claimed  to be ridding Ukraine of “a gang of drug addicts and Neo Nazis.” Mr Atkins has set out how Russia is “falsehoods and distortions” in Ukraine to push the “denazification” narrative.

Mr Atkins told the BBC’s Outside Source: “At a recent Putin rally a banner declared for a world without Nazism, and Putin has described a gang of drug addicts and Neo Nazis who settled in Kyiv and took the entire Ukrainian people hostage.

“But Russia’s claims about Nazis in Ukraine are a mix of falsehoods and distortions.

“For a start, Ukrainians are not being held hostage by Nazis, that President Vladimir Zelensky he’s Jewish.

“He has relatives who died in the Holocaust, and he’s president because he won 73 percent of the vote in 2019. 

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“The main far-right candidate reached 1.6 percent and that result is part of a broader shift in the 2012 parliamentary election.

“The main far-right party won 10 percent in 2014. It was 6 percent. In 2019. It was 2 percent. 

“No far-right groups have any formal political power in Ukraine and based on polling and results, the far right is much less popular in Ukraine than for example, the leader of the far-right in France Marine Le Pen.

“Far-right groups, though, do we exist in Ukraine, and Russia’s focus on them is not new.”

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Wilson Center research Izabella Tabarovsky added: The word denazify, the idea that Ukraine has been overrun by the Nazis is something that Russian propaganda has been talking about for eight years since the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.”

Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.

Unable to capture cities, Russia has resorted to pounding them with artillery and airstrikes.

The worst hit has been the eastern port of Mariupol, a city of 400,000 under siege since the war’s early days.

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It is the biggest Ukrainian-held city in the territory Russia demands be ceded to the separatists.

Tens of thousands of people are still believed trapped inside with scant access to food, power, or heat, while the city around them has been reduced to ruins.

In the month since they launched their invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops have failed to capture any major city.

Their assault has met stiff resistance from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s forces and has been halted at the gates of Kyiv.

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