section_path: Related issues/Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns
section_name: Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns
paragraph_text: Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns
  
  The Russian state falsely claims that Ukraine's government and society are dominated by neo-Nazism, invoking the history of collaboration in German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. These Nazi allegations are widely rejected as untrue and part of a disinformation campaign to justify the invasion. Some of the world's leading historians of Nazism and the Holocaust put out a statement rejecting the claims, which was signed by hundreds of other historians and scholars of the subject. It says:
  
  We strongly reject the Russian government's... equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression. This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it.
  
  Ukraine has a far-right fringe like most countries, including the Azov Movement and Right Sector, but analysts say that Russia's government and mainstream media greatly exaggerate its size and influence. Ukraine's president Zelenskyy is Jewish, his grandfather served in the Soviet army fighting against the Nazis, and three of his ancestors were killed in the Holocaust. In an attempt to drum-up support for the war among its citizens, Russian propaganda has framed it as a continuation of the Soviet Union's " Great Patriotic War " against Nazi Germany. Some commentators point out that Russia claims to be "denazifying" Ukraine despite Russian neo-Nazi groups (such as Rusich) taking part in the war, and despite Putin's Russia being likened to a fascist state (see Ruscism).
  
  Putin called Russians and Ukrainians " one people " and claimed there is "no historical basis" for the "idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians". Putin repeatedly denied Ukraine's right to exist, claiming that it was created by the Russian Bolsheviks and that it never had "real statehood". A poll conducted in April 2022 by " Rating " found that the vast majority (91%) of Ukrainians do not support the thesis that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people". In 2020, Vladislav Surkov, who served as an adviser to Putin on Ukraine, said "There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainianism... it is a specific disorder of the mind". Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia and former Russian president, publicly wrote that "Ukraine is NOT a country, but artificially collected territories" and that Ukrainian "is NOT a language" but a "mongrel dialect" of Russian. In 2024, Medvedev called Ukraine part of Russia and said the Russian Army will seize what he called the "Russian cities" of Kyiv and Odesa. Medvedev has also said that Ukraine should not exist in any form and that Russia will continue to wage war against any independent Ukrainian state. Moreover, Medvedev warned that Russia would use a nuclear weapon if the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive succeeded. He said Ukrainians had to choose between joining Russia or "death".
  
  Fake stories have been used to provoke public outrage against Ukraine. In April 2014, a Russian news channel showed a man saying he was attacked by a fascist Ukrainian gang, while another channel showed the same man claiming to be a Ukrainian funding far-right anti-Russia radicals. A third segment portrayed the man as a neo-Nazi surgeon. In July 2014, Channel One Russia broadcast a fake story about a 3-year-old Russian boy who was allegedly crucified by Ukrainian nationalists. Russian state media reported mass graves full of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. Amnesty International investigated these claims in 2014 and instead found isolated incidents of extrajudicial executions by both sides. Russian state news outlets have sometimes aired stories about alleged Ukrainian atrocities using footage from other unrelated conflicts.
  
  In announcing the 2022 invasion, Putin baselessly claimed that Ukraine had been carrying out genocide in the mainly Russian-speaking Donbas region for eight years. Ukraine brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to challenge Russia's claim. The ICJ said it had not seen any evidence of genocide by Ukraine. Altogether, about 14,300 people were killed by both sides in the Donbas War. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, less than a quarter of them were civilians, and at least half of those were killed by mines and unexploded ordnance.
  
  The Russian censorship apparatus Roskomnadzor ordered the country's media to use information only from Russian state sources or else face fines and blocks, and ordered media and schools to describe the war as a "special military operation". On 4 March 2022, Putin signed into law a bill introducing prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who publish "fake news" about the Russian military and its operations, leading to some media outlets to stop reporting on Ukraine. Russia's opposition politician Alexei Navalny said the "monstrosity of lies" in the Russian state media "is unimaginable. And, unfortunately, so is its persuasiveness for those who have no access to alternative information." He tweeted that "warmongers" among Russian state media personalities "should be treated as war criminals. From the editors-in-chief to the talk show hosts to the news editors, should be sanctioned now and tried someday."
  
  Islamic State claimed responsibility for the 22 March Crocus City Hall attack, a terrorist attack in a music venue in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, Russia, and published a corroborating video. Putin and the Russian security service, the FSB, blamed Ukraine for the attack, without evidence. On 3 April 2024, Russia's Defense Ministry announced that "around 16,000 citizens" had signed military contracts in the last 10 days to fight as contract soldiers in the war against Ukraine, with most of them saying they were motivated to "avenge those killed" in the Crocus City Hall attack.
  
  NAFO (North Atlantic Fella Organization), a loose cadre of online shitposters vowing to fight Russian disinformation, gained notoriety after June 2022.