Peter Dickinson writes:

The Russian Foreign Minister’s very public descent into the squalid depths of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories highlights the mounting difficulties facing the Putin regime as it attempts to justify the war in Ukraine.

Officially, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that the aim of his “special military operation” in Ukraine is to “de-Nazify” the country. However, neither Putin nor any of his colleagues have been able explain exactly why they regard Ukraine as “Nazified.” Instead, they have relied largely on outside ignorance of contemporary Ukraine along with Soviet-era propaganda tropes equating any expressions of Ukrainian national identity with fascism.

In reality, independent Ukraine has established itself over the past three decades as an imperfect but vibrant democracy with a pluralistic political culture that is light years away from modern Russia’s own authoritarian model. Since 1991, the post-Soviet generation of Ukrainians have grown used to a highly competitive and often unruly democratic climate which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the fascist tyranny of Kremlin fairytales.

Russian propagandists and their Western allies routinely exaggerate the degree of far-right influence in today’s Ukraine, but in fact nationalist parties have made little impression on the country’s mainstream politics and remain far more marginalized than elsewhere in Europe. It is instructive to note that while the openly far-right Marine Le Pen received more than 41% of the vote in France’s recent presidential ballot, a coalition of Ukraine’s leading far-right parties managed to secure just 2.15% in the country’s 2019 parliamentary election. [Continue reading…]