Since the reaction is positive, I will continue to write my “view from the inside.” Many in Russia support what is happening, because they really believe that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine, who are also called Russophobes, so the Jewish president does not bother anyone. When asked where these Russophobes are, they usually refer to the presence in Ukraine of someone like gopniks who can make you “explain for gear / Russian numbers.” Reports of bombings only reinforce this opinion, because if there are no Nazis, then who is bombing their own people? They also refer to 8 years of shelling of the Donbass, and if you were silent then, and now you are against the war, then you are a hypocrite, although given the uniformity and inappropriateness of the messages, there is a suspicion that these are bots. The fact that Russia unleashed the conflict in the Donbass is denied on the grounds that if the Russian troops wanted to, they would have captured the Donbass in a matter of days, not years, but now the Russian army is moving as carefully as possible, so it will take a month to reach Kyiv, and not 96 hours, so they don’t fight at night to let civilians sleep.
This point about Ukrainian neo-Nazis is very misunderstood by the West.
During the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014, neo-Nazi groups occupied government buildings and brought about a transition of government.
Why are there neo-Nazis in Ukraine? Because during WWII, the Nazis and the USSR were fighting over Ukraine. Ukraine is today quite ethnically diverse, and some of the ‘western’ Ukrainians who were resentful of USSR rule and, later, Russian influence, have reclaimed nazi ideas as part of a far-right Ukrainian nationalism. Some of these nazi groups that were originally militias have been incorporated into the Ukrainian military.
Since the reaction is positive, I will continue to write my “view from the inside.” Many in Russia support what is happening, because they really believe that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine, who are also called Russophobes, so the Jewish president does not bother anyone. When asked where these Russophobes are, they usually refer to the presence in Ukraine of someone like gopniks who can make you “explain for gear / Russian numbers.” Reports of bombings only reinforce this opinion, because if there are no Nazis, then who is bombing their own people? They also refer to 8 years of shelling of the Donbass, and if you were silent then, and now you are against the war, then you are a hypocrite, although given the uniformity and inappropriateness of the messages, there is a suspicion that these are bots. The fact that Russia unleashed the conflict in the Donbass is denied on the grounds that if the Russian troops wanted to, they would have captured the Donbass in a matter of days, not years, but now the Russian army is moving as carefully as possible, so it will take a month to reach Kyiv, and not 96 hours, so they don’t fight at night to let civilians sleep.
This point about Ukrainian neo-Nazis is very misunderstood by the West.
During the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014, neo-Nazi groups occupied government buildings and brought about a transition of government.
Why are there neo-Nazis in Ukraine? Because during WWII, the Nazis and the USSR were fighting over Ukraine. Ukraine is today quite ethnically diverse, and some of the ‘western’ Ukrainians who were resentful of USSR rule and, later, Russian influence, have reclaimed nazi ideas as part of a far-right Ukrainian nationalism. Some of these nazi groups that were originally militias have been incorporated into the Ukrainian military.
This is all quite well documented:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Euromaidan_regional_state_administration_occupations
https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
One of the regiments most well known to have Nazi ties was defeated at the Siege of Mariupol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Regiment
Naturally, this history is downplayed in presentations of Ukrainian nationalism targeted at the West, and emphasized in Russia depictions of Ukraine.