Putin's claim of fighting against Ukraine 'neo-Nazis' distorts history, scholars say

Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked World War II to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying in televised remarks last week that his offensive aimed to "denazify" the country — whose democratically elected president is Jewish, and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

"The purpose of this operation is to protect people who for eight years now have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime," he said, according to an English translation from the Russian Mission in Geneva. "To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation."

Russian officials have continued to employ that rhetoric in recent days.

Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Western countries of ignoring what it called war crimes in Ukraine, saying their silence "encouraged the onset of neo-Nazism and Russophobia." Russia's envoy to the United Nations reiterated that it is carrying out "a special military operation against nationalists to protect the people