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“There are Nazis in Ukraine.” - A statement that was and still is hotly debated by the media, supporters of either Russia or Ukraine and non-partisan “concerned citizens”. The statement isn’t just any statement, it lies at the core of Russia’s justifications for invading Ukraine, an attempt to turn a blatant land grab into an act of charity.
The statement became a pivotal topic throughout the duration of this war, and thus we dedicated a sizable amount of runtime towards it in our original, hastily researched and written documentary on the Ukraine conflict, The Ukraine Narratives. In that segment we explored the various far-right groups operating in Ukraine and the competing narratives surrounding them, and how vastly different pictures could be painted by lying through omission.
Our conclusion was that Ukraine was not a Neo-Nazi or Fascist country on the whole, but that it does have a dangerous far-right element, represented by the “Azov Battalion”, a Neo-Nazi military unit, and various far-right political parties, such as the Svoboda party. We took the view that while these organisations weren’t popular, their existence was a concern.
We also pointed out that Russia has far-right groups among its own ranks, showing that their narratives about “denazification” didn’t really match up with the facts.
While overall we stand by these original conclusions, we decided to revisit this topic for the making of the Ukrainian Divide series, and we found a much bigger picture than what was shown in our original coverage: The groups we discussed, Azov and Svoboda on the Ukrainian side, and the Russian National Unity organisation on the Russian side, were only a small piece of the puzzle.