Why it’s true: Ukrainian Nationalism = Ukrainian Nazism

How a schismatic population, a misguided yearning for nationhood, and manipulation by Great Powers led to a modern day revival of Nazism in its most odious forms.

Prior to the current conflict, the “Nazi problem” in Ukraine was recognised and well documented by global mainstream media ranging from The New York Times and NBC News to Reuters and The Nation. Even the conservative Atlantic Council, NATO’s think tank, knew there was a problem in 2018.

Geography as Destiny

In order to understand Ukrainian Nationalism as well as Ukrainian Nazism, it is important to know Ukrainian geography.

Firstly, we must realise what “The Ukraine” is. When I was younger, we always referred to the country we now call Ukraine as “The Ukraine.” that is because the word “Ukraine” comes from the Slavic word “Ukraina” — which means “borderlands” (the word is the same in both Russian and Polish). So it was never really its own country. Both the Russians and the Poles called it “the borderlands”.

In other words, the place now called Ukraine was always regarded as a sort of generalised geographic area, an outlying territory that formed the buffer between Russia and other states.

Indeed, much of what we now call Ukraine was “owned” by Poland, Austria and Hungary (in the West) and by Russia (in the…