The Claim:
Russian nationalist extremist Alexander Dugin claimed in a column published by Geopolitika.ru that Vladimir Putin’s “Special Military Operation” was undertaken to fight the Antichrist forces ruling Kyiv. The article falsely claims that Ukraine is not an independent entity and that its leaders are aligned with the devil. Dugin further claims that the “horrors, terror, violence, hatred, ferocious repression against the Church, degeneration, sadism and all the excesses of Ukrainian Nazism demonstrate that the Antichrist forces are simply using the Ukrainians to achieve their goals.”
The Facts:
There is no evidence to support the claims made by Dugin. Ukraine’s government is democratically elected and represents Ukrainians of various religious beliefs. President Zelelnskyy is Jewish.
Narrative Context:
The Kremlin regularly promotes conspiracies about the Ukrainian government in efforts to undermine its credibility and Western and Ukrainian trust towards it. This includes conspiracies about “neo-Nazis” and “satanists” controlling it.
In October 2022, Russia’s Security Council publicly stated that Ukraine’s government requires “de-Satanization”.
According to EUvsDisinfo, “Pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets have previously employed the devil and symbols associated with evil forces to prop up their disinformation efforts.”
Ukraine stands as a sovereign democratic nation, far from being a puppet corrupted or subjugated by the so-called collective West.
Contrary to misleading narratives, there is no repression against the church in Ukraine. In early December 2022, the Ukrainian government declared plans to draft a law that would ban churches affiliated with Russia.
The narrative of a “Nazi Ukraine” has been widely propagated, in conjunction with accusations of “Western Russophobia,” by Putin and pro-Kremlin outlets since Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. This myth is a strategic component of disinformation aimed at undermining Ukraine’s legitimacy and sovereignty.
