Russian President Vladimir Putin can't decide on a propaganda message, but the one being adopted by the pro-Putin right-wing is about saving Jewish people. The Russian propaganda that they were invading Ukraine to save them from Nazis came after the argument that northern Ukraine wanted to join Russia, but before Putin's claim that Ukraine was bombing their own citizens.
Writing for the Bulwark, Cathy Young explained that the Nazi argument dates back to 2014 when Putin dispatched his military to invade Crimea.
"This narrative, already lacking in credibility eight years ago (despite the very real presence of some far-right radicals among the Euromaidan protesters and fighters), has been even harder to sustain today when the 'neo-Nazi junta' is led by Ukraine’s first Jewish President, Volodymyr Zelensky," she explained.
Yet, oddly, that argument persists among the Russian government accounts, the far right in the United States and on social media.
Dan Cohen, a far-left former staffer of the international Russian propaganda network RT, has also picked up this banner to broadcast to his 79,000 followers.
In one case, Russia is pushing out a video of a Ukrainian reporter quoting Nazi Adolf Eichmann. The reality is that the reporter, Fakhrudin Sharafmal, just lost a dear friend of his and was sobbing on television. He explained the friend was company commander of the 503rd battalion of the marines, Pavel Sbitov, said Young. What Sharafmal actually said is "Since you call us Nazis, I will follow Adolf Eichmann's doctrine and will do everything to ensure that neither you nor your children can live on our land."
Young noted that the black and white photo of Eichmann that appears on the screen was never in the original. It was added by Russian propagandists.
Sharafmal also apologized the following day and was arrested for breaking a Ukrainian law prohibiting neo-Nazi propaganda, the site said.
"I ask your forgiveness for my outburst yesterday," Sharafmal said, according to Young's translator. "It was unacceptable from both a journalistic and a human standpoint. Ukrainians are not barbaric like Russians; we are first and foremost human. My pain of loss and sadness took over, which is why I apologize. We respect all international norms, including the Geneva convention, and will not allow the same genocide as the one happening right now on Ukrainian territory."
Young also noted that around the same time the apology was being issued Russian state TV was broadcasting calls for public hangings of Ukrainians after their "liberation" is over. They showed footage from 1945 when Nazi collaborators were hanged in the Kyiv square.
Cohen didn't mention any of that.
In another post, he took a screen capture of the cross on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's shirt when he was speaking before Congress. The emblem wasn't that of the German iron cross, as he suggested, but the symbol used for the Ukrainian armed forces. The symbol in the middle is a trident.
Cohen hasn't retracted the statement or provided a fact check.
