The Far-Right Involvement in the Russia-Ukraine War
摘要
Russia justified its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by “denazification” of Ukraine. However, this chapter shows that the Russian government misrepresented and inflated the role of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine in order to justify the Russian invasion. Contrary to the Russian government and media claims, the Ukrainian state and the military are not Nazi or neo-Nazi. The evidence shows that the power of the far right, in particular, neo-Nazi Azov movement, significantly increased in Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine war. They significantly expanded the number, size, and influence of armed formations under their de facto control. Contrary to the narratives propagated by the Western and Ukrainian governments and the media, the far-right armed formations did not deradicalize and depoliticize and were not marginal.