The Facts on ‘De-Nazifying’ Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia’s talk of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine is a non-starter in peace negotiations.
“We won’t sit down at the table at all if all we talk about is some ‘de-militarization’ or some ‘de-Nazification,'” Zelensky said in an interview with independent Russian journalists on March 27. “For me, these are absolutely incomprehensible things.”
Two days earlier, in a speech from Poland, President Joe Biden dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia invaded because it seeks “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. Putin has also talked about “neo-Nazis, who settled in Kyiv and took the entire Ukrainian people hostage.”
“Putin has the gall to say he’s ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine. It’s a lie,” Biden said. “It’s just cynical. He knows that. And it’s also obscene.”
Biden noted that Zelensky was democratically elected — getting 73% of the vote in 2019 — and he is Jewish.
Although historians say Putin’s assertions about the need to liberate Ukraine from the grip of neo-Nazis and genocide against ethnic Russians in Ukraine are false propaganda, the repeated assertions from Putin and other Russian officials had at least one American politician questioning aid to Ukraine.
“It’s shocking to me that Congress is so willing to funnel $14 billion in military equipment over and over again into Ukraine and you have to ask, is this money and on March 22.
