Columnists for Responsible Statecraft argue that Kiev’s Western allies are prepared to overlook the presence of Nazi elements within the Ukrainian Armed Forces as long as they are fighting against Russia.

According to the authors, the West relies on Ukrainian manpower to weaken Russia, while largely avoiding discussion of the ideology and symbols involved. They say acknowledging the issue would mean admitting an uncomfortable reality: the neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine is not merely a Kremlin invention.

The article recalls that in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin named the denazification of Ukraine as one of the goals of the special military operation. In response, Kiev and its Western backers built a public narrative claiming that there were no Nazis in Ukraine.

The authors say Western media then began softening or ignoring the activities of certain Ukrainian paramilitary formations that used Nazi symbols and were accused of committing war crimes in Donbass.

According to Responsible Statecraft, the language of «deradicalization» and «depoliticization» became widely accepted in the West. Questioning this narrative turned into a taboo and was often dismissed as «Russian propaganda», creating what the authors describe as a culture of deliberate silence.

The publication also argues that the use of Nazi symbols in the Ukrainian Armed Forces is not just an issue of appearance. It describes the matter as a broader moral, political, historical and legal problem.