I'm beginning to suspect these Nazi folks aren't very honest.

Why is the governing party of Ukraine centre while Russia is far-right.

Not to mention how the little country treats queer people way better.

Because MAGA is in denial. They think Nazis are left wing.

To Russians, 'Nazi' is not a political ideology or a party, it's simply "Whoever is against Russia right now". Are you against Russia? You're a Nazi, it's as simple as that. If they had to contend with the idea that Nazism is a political ideology, they'd have to start calling themselves Nazis, which doesn't work in the Russian psyche.

So, when Russians say that Ukrainians are Nazis, what they really mean is "Ukrainians are fighting back when we kill their children. That makes them enemies and therefore Nazis"

I remember seeing a video posted fairly early on, showing a award ceremony where an LDR/DPR fighter was given medal for "his contributions to denazification". Both him and his commander was smugly smirking at each other. But what really tore it? The guy being awarded the medal was wearing shoulder patches featuring a Totenkopf and a Valknut.

I've lost count of the number of photos from Wagner Group youth camps featuring Nazi iconography. Never mind people like Dmitry Utkin and his tattoos.

Frankly, I think it gets a bit confusing when we lump every horrible authoritarian into the 'Nazi' bucket.

Not to validate Russia's assertion of any such authoritaranism in Ukraine, just broadly speaking to the 'they are a Nazi' accusations. Like even if a lot of these folks aren't "Nazis" they are still bad, but the language is like they might be fine so long as they aren't specifically a Nazi...

Because the Nazi ideology is no globalistic in the sense that Russians can think they are the "master race" and Ukrainians can think that they are the "master race".

That said, "fighting again Nazis" is just Russian propaganda.

Ultranationalists support ultranationalism up until the point there's an overlap in blood and/or soil which case ultranationalists will zealously butcher each other. Nothing is more legitimizing than warfighting.

Many tankies are apologetic of Russian imperialism as well.

Tbf to Russia, during "operation gladio" the CIA funded ultra far right nationalist paramilitaries all across Europe which they paid for by running the heroine game out of Myanmar in collusion with the sicilian mob. It's the main reason for the rise of the far right all across Europe.

To be real with Russia, the idea that they could de-nazify another country when they couldn't even do it to themselves is a sick joke. However, the best lies have a grain of truth to them.

Oooh, ooh, I know this one, me me me, teacher, me me!

Oops! All Nazis

russia DIDN'T realize that ukraine's president is a jewish person named volodymyrr zelensky (which is fine, there's NOTHING wrong with being a jewish person). seriously!

Ukraine do have a nazi problem, but russia isnt fighting against those nazis thats for sure.

For me its an inter imperialist war so I dont care much about it

nor do they give a shit about nazis within their own borders. skinheads raiding the few gay bars left is just another tuesday here.

Just to play with the idea: a Russian victory puts them closer to having to fight them themselves.

$ ./once_more_with_feeling.sh

Putin, the Tsar

Putin has modeled his rule after the Tsarist monarchy of the Russian Empire. He notably despises communism and blames it for the collapse of the USSR. He calls himself "president" but many within the state Duma believe the title to be an embarrassing western descriptor and would prefer to bestow on him the title of "pravitel" or "ruler".

But Putin ran into a bit of a problem. Just as to be called Caesar you need to rule Rome, to be called czar you need to rule over all of Rus. For him, the cultural, historical, and religious significance of Kievan Rus was just too large to be ignored.

When it existed, the Russian Empire tried to erase the other eastern Slavic languages from their shared cultural memory. They acted as if there was no Ukraine and never had been, just as with Belarus. According to the Tsarists, Ukrainians had always been Russians and had no history of their own. The Ukrainian and Belorussian languages were banned. Ukrainian nationalism was a threat to the underlying myths of Russia and threatened the czars' attempts at creating an “All-Russian People.”

Putin is emulating their rule and presents himself as a tsar-like figure. He’s built a massive, opulent palace for himself, with gold-plated double-headed eagles, a clear Imperial Russian symbol, everywhere—even in his personal strip club. Similarly, the Russian Orthodox Church helps him pacify the population and supports whatever myths Kremlin wants to glorify. He wanted to go down in the history books as a grand unifier of Russian lands—if not under the same government, then definitely as the hegemon of the Russian world.

Putin wants it both ways: to take credit for the Soviet legacy and, at the same time, to be viewed in the same light as the emperors and czars of old. Therefore, he's had to bring back and reaffirm the old, imperial myths and values—and to do that, he has to get Kyiv under his thumb. After all, it was the restored Kievan Rus that became Russia, the "Third Rome". Ukraine going its own way, claiming Kievan Rus as its legacy, moving away from Moscow, getting autocephaly for its own orthodox church—all of this runs contrary to Russian state mythology.

These imperial myths are what define Russia, what it even means to be a Russian. Without them, Russia just stops being Russia in the eyes of many. Putin is convinced that if this social glue is disrupted, then Russia will just split up in pieces again—and if he allows that to happen, then his legacy is ruined. For him, there can be no separate Ukrainian language, culture, or history. 

That is where his mind is at; stuck in the 18th and  19th centuries.

The absolute shortsightedness of the governments trying to push us all into a new war will be their undoing