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Ukraine: A Far Cry From Europe’s Far Right
https://www.facebook.com/uacrisis/posts/642608382474587 ^ | May 27, 2014 | Ukrainian Crisis Media Center

Posted on 05/28/2014 1:58:13 AM PDT by hubel458

According to preliminary results, the vast majority of Ukrainians – nearly 60% – have voted for Petro Poroshenko, an active participant in the Euromaidan protests and a multi-millionaire businessman. The two far-right nationalist parties, Svoboda and Right Sector, received less than 2 percent of the votes between them. These results debunk the Kremlin-sponsored myth about neo-Nazis coming to power in Ukraine.

The May 25 presidential elections ended a transitional period in Ukrainian politics: since former president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in late February, Ukraine has been governed by an Acting Head of State, an Acting Prime Minister and an Acting Government. Under these circumstances, with only the Parliament being without the prefix “Acting”, some have raised questions about the legitimacy of Ukraine’s institutions of power.

Others, primarily Russian propagandists and their apologists in the West, have gone even further, stating that Ukraine’s new government was not only illegitimate, but nationalist and fascist. To justify their blatant propagandistic rhetoric, the Kremlin’s advocates pointed to an alleged dominance of ultra-right political forces in the government, allegedly formed at gun-point by the “radical” leaders of the Euromaidan protests.

The prime targets of the “outbreak of fascism in Ukraine” line of argument were the Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda and the radical revolutionary movement Right Sector. Over the last six months both have been vilified and demonized – largely unjustly – by Putin’s propaganda and its western stooges.

More importantly, the myth about Neo-nazis roaming and ravaging the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities was the main weapon of a mass-media campaign intended to delude the local population, and used by Putin in Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, as well as in Russia’s military subversion aimed at destabilizing the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donbass and Luhansk. All of Putin’s recent public statements about Ukraine, without exception, were peppered with insulting – and inaccurate – references to fascists and blood-thirsty Gestapo torturers in the illegitimate Ukrainian government, who torment and kill peaceful Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.

The outcome of the early presidential elections, however, has blown Russian propagandists out of the water: the core, as Kremlin would have the world believe, of Ukraine’s new fascists – Svoboda and Right Sector – received a mere 1,9 percent of the votes nationwide.

At the same time, far-right nationalist parties in other European countries are on the unprecedented rise. In the most recent European Parliament elections, which took place on the same day as Ukraine’s Presidential vote, right-wing forces have caused what some commentators have described as a “political earthquake” or a “tsunami”.

Nationalist parties claimed astonishingly high results in such countries as France (25 percent), Denmark (23 percent), Austria (20 percent) and Belgium (30-32 percent). These are results Ukrainian “fascists” could only dream of.

Ukraine’s Presidential elections, therefore, pose an awkward challenge for Putin’s propagandists: how to explain, at least to their domestic audience, the absence of fascists in Ukraine, the crusade against whom was used by Putin as a justification for most of his recent internationally-recognized crimes against the Ukrainian people.



TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: uraine

1 posted on 05/28/2014 1:58:13 AM PDT by hubel458
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To: hubel458
Ukraine’s Presidential elections, therefore, pose an awkward challenge for Putin’s propagandists: how to explain, at least to their domestic audience, the absence of fascists in Ukraine, the crusade against whom was used by Putin as a justification for most of his recent internationally-recognized crimes against the Ukrainian people.
vranyo
In Russian culture a distinction is drawn between two kinds of lies, vranyo and lozh which do not have exact parallels in English. Vranyo has been claimed as uniquely Russian, and seems to consist of telling untrue but credible stories, a practice not condemned by those who recognize what is going on. Indeed, for success in vranyo-telling, there must be a listener who pretends to believe in the truth of what is being said. [...] Lozh, on the other hand, implies a conscious intention to deceive.
2 posted on 05/28/2014 2:25:14 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: hubel458
Neo-Nazism - Russia
In a 2007 news story, the ABC News reported, "In a country that lost more people defeating the Nazis than any other country, there are now an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 neo-Nazis, half of the world's total."
3 posted on 05/28/2014 2:30:49 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: hubel458
Prince Charles compared Putin to Hitler
4 posted on 05/28/2014 2:37:34 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Berlin_Freeper

The mere fact that Russian culture has a type of lying that nobody else has says a lot about Russia ...

and how much we should trust them.


5 posted on 05/28/2014 3:06:50 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
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To: hubel458

Notice how “nationalist” is now a dirty word in politics?


6 posted on 05/28/2014 3:32:25 AM PDT by Hugin
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To: hubel458
"Nationalist parties claimed astonishingly high results in such countries as France (25 percent), Denmark (23 percent), Austria (20 percent) and Belgium (30-32 percent).

This is only astonishing to clueless, braindead state-run media types, the establishment ruling class types and their acolytes.

This is a completely predictable development and its happened at least twice, with socialist/nationalist parties taking over in two major European countries and other smaller European countries. I've refering to Mussolini, who turned his pro-war socialism into fascism and Hitler left-wing, nationalist-sytle socialism took over Germany in the 1920's and 1930's.

The Ruling Classes have created mass immigration into socialist countries. The immigrants immediately get all kinds of free welfare state goodies. This is paid for by the remaining working people and by the reduction in benefits for the native people in all of these European countries. It's paid for by rationing of medical care, by delays in receiving care. It's paid for in the deterioration of public schools, by the increase in crime, by the created divisions in society with "no-go areas" in France, UK, Sweden, etc.

It's obvious that the "charge of racism" will lose it's sting and reality can be denied for only so long. A reaction was inevitable. This reaction by voters has just started and it's going to get bigger as the fear of social disapproval is reduced and more people become willing to support the anti-immigration parties.

7 posted on 05/28/2014 8:50:20 AM PDT by Jabba the Nutt (You can have a free country or government schools. Choose one.)
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