Mi sono ripromesso di tenermi fuori dal teatrino dei complottismi intorno all'invasione russa dell’Ucraina, ma faccio un’eccezione per questo servizio di Ros Atkins, della BBC, che spiega e smonta bene la polemica artificiosa sul presunto neonazismo che, secondo i russi, dominerebbe in Ucraina e in particolare nel cosiddetto “battaglione Azov". Notate come si fa a comunicare bene, con parole nette, dati concreti, fonti esperte, toni pacati e soprattutto difesa della realtà pura e semplice, senza troppi giri di parole. Nove minuti che valgono novanta minuti di qualunque logorroico talk-show con ospiti chiamati a creare polemica e battibecco invece di informare.
Questa è la trascrizione dei sottotitoli e del parlato. Se a qualcuno interessa, ne preparo una traduzione in italiano.
ATKINS: Vladimir Putin has given several reasons
for his invasion of Ukraine. This is one
of them.
PUTIN: We will be aiming at demilitarization
and de-Nazification of Ukraine.
ATKINS: At a recent Putin rally, a banner
declared “for a world without Nazism” and Putin has described a “gang of drug
addicts and neo-Nazis, who settled in Kyiv and took the entire Ukrainian
people hostage”. But Russia's claims about Nazis in Ukraine are a mix of falsehoods and
distortions. For a start, Ukrainians are
not being held hostage by Nazis. Their
president’s Volodymyr Zelensky; he's Jewish,
he has relatives who died in the Holocaust and he's president because he
won 73% of the vote in 2019. The main
far-right candidate reached 1.6%
and that result is part of a broader
shift. In the 2012 parliamentary election,
the main far-right party won 10%. In 2014 it was 6%; in 2019 it was
2%. No far-right groups have any formal
political power in Ukraine and based on
polling and results, the far right's much
less popular in Ukraine than, for example,
the leader of the far-right in France, Marine Le Pen. Far-right groups, though, do exist in Ukraine and Russia's focus on them is
not new.
IZABELLA TAVAROVKSY (Wilson Center): The word “de-Nazify”, the idea that Ukraine has been overrun by the Nazis, is
something that Russian propaganda has
been talking about for eight years, since
the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
ATKINS: Ukraine wasn't and isn't being overrun
by Nazis. But what happened eight years
ago is relevant here. That's because in
late 2013, under pressure from Putin, Ukraine's then president Victor Yanukovych backed out of a cooperation
deal with the EU. Huge protests followed, as would a
crackdown. In time, Yanukovych would flee
to Russia. This was a challenge to Putin's ability to influence Ukraine, and
he retaliated. First, Russia annexed Crimea; then it backed separatists in
parts of eastern Ukraine. And this is
where the story connects back to the far
right, because in 2014 the Ukrainian
military was much smaller than it is now. It was struggling, and brigades of
volunteers joined the fight against the
separatists. Some of them had far-right
elements. The most high profile was this
one: the Azov battalion. It was set up by
this man, Andre Baletsky, who has a
history of racist and anti-semitic views
and in 2014 the BBC's Steve Rosenberg
spoke to him.
ROSENBERG: Much has been written about Azov. About it being ultranationalist and even neo-Nazi. What is Azov's ideology?
BALETSKY: Yes, we’re nationalists. We’ve never hidden that. Our whole ideology is in our symbol. It’s a combination of the letters I and N. It means “Idea of the Nation”.
ATKINS: This is the Azov emblem being shown to Steve there. It's a
pagan symbol known as “Wolfsangel”, and a
version of it was used by some SS units
in Nazi Germany. Andreas Umland is an expert
on Ukrainian nationalism. He's looked at
this, writing “The Wolfsangel has
far-right connotations... but it's not
considered a fascist symbol by the
population in Ukraine.” That may be, but
back in 2015 Azov acknowledged that some
of its fighters held Nazi views. A
spokesperson told USA Today that only 10
to 20 percent of the group's members are Nazis, and he sought to make a
distinction using one fighter as an
example. “I know Alex is a Nazi”, he said, “but it's his personal ideology, it has
nothing to do with the official ideology
of the Azov”. Now the degree of Nazi
sentiment in Azov is impossible to
verify, but this 2015 quote is relevant,
because by this time Azov had become
part of Ukraine's National Guard. It was
under government command, and there was
one main reason for that happening.
KACPER REKAWEK (University of Oslo): We have to be honest, they were just good
fighters in 2014, and they seem to be
pretty good fighters now in Mariupol. That's why they were taken on the books.
ATKINS: And in 2014, with Russia backing
separatists, urgent military
considerations trumped all others. Ukraine was under attack and its then
president Petro Poroshenko called Azov
“our best warriors”. But when in 2015 he
was asked by the BBC about the group's
far-right links,
his reply was blunt.
POROSHENKO: Please,
don't listen to Russian propaganda.
ATKINS: Russia has used Azov in its propaganda
for years, and as we assess claims about Azov's role in Ukraine, context is vital
here. Ukraine's armed forces total 250,000 plus 50,000 National Guard. Azov is
part of the National Guard, with around a
thousand volunteer fighters. It's a tiny
fraction of the Ukrainian military. It's
also not the same force as it was in
2014.
ADRIEN NONJON (National Institute of Oriental Languages & Civilizations): Azov opened its recruitment to the whole of Ukrainian society and eventually this
radical core was drowned out by the mass
of newcomers who joined the regiment
because it was an elite unit.
ATKINS: And while the membership, was evolving
the founder also left to start a new
far-right political party. A party which
has failed to achieve any electoral
success. But the Azov regiment that he
left behind is high-profile and
mainstream. This is the view of the Ukrainian government.
ANTON HERASHCHENKO (Adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister): The only Nazi elements we have on the
territory of Ukraine now are the Russian
fascist army.
ATKINS: In the last few days, President Zelensky
announced that Azov's commander in Mariupol will receive the highest
national military award. But despite this
acclaim, despite the evolving membership,
questions about neo-Nazi links remain. In
January, Buzzfeed's Christopher Miller
reported that he'd seen an Azov veteran
wearing white supremacists and Nazi
symbols. There is, though, no evidence such
sentiment is widespread. Here's Vitaliy
Shevchenko from BBC Monitoring.
SHEVCHENKO: I was
looking at the Azov battalion's social
media activity and its website
and
all they talk about is fighting the Russian forces, and there's very little
in terms of
extremist,
anti-migrant or
xenophobic rhetoric there.
ATKINS: And so it is
this Azov regiment that is part of Ukraine's resistance, and just as in 2014
its focus is the Donbass region that
includes the two breakaway republics and
the city of Mariupol. It is close to the Sea of Azov which gives the regiment its
name. It's also where Azov made its name. Back in 2014, Azov successfully defended
the city. As Mariupol is bombarded by the Russians now, alongside other Ukrainian
forces, it's trying to do so again. And Azov's presence in Mariupol once more
makes it central to Russia's false
narratives. You'll remember the horror of Russia bombing a maternity hospital in
the city. Afterwards the Russians said
this.
SERGEI LAVROV (Russian Foreign Minister): At the UN Security Council, facts were
proffered by our delegation, saying that
the maternity hospital had been taken
over by Azov battalion and other
radicals.
ATKINS: But there's no evidence Azov
were based there; no evidence it was a
military facility. Then there's Russia's
attack on a theater in Mariupol that was
sheltering civilians. Russia accuses Azov
of doing this; there's absolutely no
evidence this is true. And so, while any Azov volunteers having
neo-Nazi sympathies is shocking and worthy
of note, neo-Nazis are not the threat
that Russia describes. But perhaps this
is not about an actual threat and rather
about something else entirely. The New York Times writes of how the word “Nazi”
appears geared towards Russians, for whom
remembrance of the Soviet Union's
victory over Nazi Germany remains
perhaps the single most powerful element
of a unifying national identity. Putin is
looking to the past to create motivation
in the present. This is the historian Shane O'Rourke.
SHANE O’ROURKE: What the regime is doing is using the
memory of the war, the very deep feelings
it arouses, to legitimize its actions not
just in Ukraine but but in many other
places as well.
ATKINS: Putin has his reasons to
do this, but he doesn't have the facts. Just after Russia's invasion, 150
historians who study genocide, Nazism
and World War II released a statement. In
it, they argue “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”. The
rhetoric is factually wrong: Nazis don't
hold Ukraine hostage, they're not
launching attacks on Ukrainians. There's
no evidence to support this kind of
claim.
SERGEI MAKROV (Former Russian MP): Most of the Ukrainians hate these
neo-Nazi groups
and they pray for Russia and for
somebody else to liberate Ukrainian society from a Nazi group.
ATKINS: Ukrainians don't need liberating from Nazis; to their president, this idea is
pure fiction.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: It's already the 25th day of the Russian
military trying in vain to find
imaginary Nazis from whom they allegedly
want to defend our people, just as
they're trying in vain to find Ukrainians who would greet them with
flowers.
ATKINS: That search will continue to be
in vain because while the evolution of
the Azov regiment deserves scrutiny,
neo-Nazis and the far-right do not play
the role in Ukraine that Russia falsely
describes. They didn't in 2014;
they don't now.
