Thread by @ADL

Putin’s false accusation that Ukraine has a Nazi regime is just the latest example of #RussianPropaganda that involves #antisemitism or Holocaust distortion, often in the form of unfounded Nazi comparisons. A thread:

The most famous Russian #antisemitic propaganda is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery first disseminated in Russia in 1903, which blames a secret cabal of Jews for much of the world’s problems.
antisemitism.adl.org/power/

Soviet intelligence agents conducted a campaign of covert swastika painting in West Germany in 1959-1960 to support Soviet propaganda that West Germany remained a Nazi state, while the Soviet Union was the true victor over #Nazism.

During the Soviet era, Israel was often the target of #antisemitic propaganda, including Nazi comparisons, like in this disgusting cartoon.

Since Ukraine’s 2013-14 “Revolution of Dignity,” which overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia has engaged in a disinformation campaign against Ukraine, which includes concocted, unfounded, or exaggerated accusations of #antisemitism.

Putin stated shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster that he was concerned by what he described as a “rampage of reactionary forces, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces” in Ukraine.

After Russian forces occupied the Crimea region in Ukraine and then annexed it to Russia, Putin again raised the specter of #antisemitism, claiming that #Kyiv was under the control of “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites.”

In October 2014, Russian newspapers Pravda and Izvestia reported that some 20 Jews had been savagely beaten in a series of attacks in #Odessa. Local Jewish residents refuted the report as totally false.

Ukrainian intelligence has accused Russia of perpetrating almost 30 “false flag” operations to portray Ukraine as a dangerous place for minorities, like a 2016 attack in which red paint & a severed pig’s head were thrown into a Jewish shrine at the grave of Rabbi Nachman in Uman.

The long history of #antisemitic Russian political propaganda doesn’t make the allegation that President Zelensky’s government is a Nazi regime any less ridiculous. Just less original.