Claiming “De-Nazification,” Putin’s actions recall other Nazi crimes

 https://forward.com/culture/483010/putin-nazi-denazification-ukraine-jewish-president/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_3778361

As Russia invaded Ukraine, beginning at five in the morning, Vladimir Putin’s statement that his purpose was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine clearly disgusted Ukraine’s first-ever Jewish President.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy — whose three great-uncles were murdered in the Holocaust — responded on Twitter that Russia attacked Ukraine just “as Nazi Germany did.”

“As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history,” Zelenskyy said. “Russia has embarked on a path of evil.”

The framing of Zelenskyy as a Nazi has been going on for a while. In October, the former president of Russia and current deputy chairman of its Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, published “an expletive-laden article aimed at Ukraine and at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing his country as a vassal state of the U.S. with whom it is impossible to negotiate,” according to Stephen Blank, an expert on Russia and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Medvedev compared Zelenskyy to the Sonderkommando.