Sept 5 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a television interview on Tuesday, without citing evidence, that Western powers had installed Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is of Jewish heritage, as president of Ukraine to cover up the glorification of Nazism.
In justifying its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a "special military operation," Russia accuses Kyiv's leaders of being neo-Nazis pursuing a "genocide" of Russian-speakers - an assertion that Kyiv and Western countries dismiss as a baseless pretext for a war of acquisition.
Putin was answering a question from Russian reporter Pavel Zaubin and his comments were shown on Russian state TV.
Zelenskiy, who has said that some of his grandfather’s brothers were killed in the Holocaust, has repeatedly dismissed as false Russian accusations that he has supported neo-Nazis in Ukraine. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey Editing by Alex Richardson)
TASS source (Russian media) : https://tass.com/politics/1670265
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As a russian I can say that Putin is definitely crazy. He always was crazy a littlw due to his KGB past, you know, some tendency to overestimate impact of special servies and conspiracy. But I guess that the last drop was a covid pandemic when he sitted alone in bunker for a year in a total isolation. He totally out of mind. I do not think that one should seriously look at his speeches. Also, as a native russian speaker I watched a video interview and can proove that the translation is cirrect. He really said it...
Whatever he's smoking he's gotta either share or quit hitting it for a bit
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Others... Apparently you can, in fact, make this shit up.
What a world.
Nah, typical of Soviet-era trick of "say one thing, mean another" confusion bullshit.
Yes, famously the idea of "say one thing, mean another," didn't exist before 1917.
Not justifying it, but the use of the word Nazi seems a lot different in Russia compared to the West. The West is going to use the word Nazi to describe authoritarian governments that engage in genocide. Of the two belligerents in the war, that describes Russia a lot more than Ukraine.
In contrast, I feel like the word Nazi in Russia is used more to describe an existential threat to Russia. Nazis invaded Russia, and Ukraine is a threat on par with Russia.
So the home audience hears this and hears that Putin is attacking Russia's enemies, and a lot of others are confused as Putin's Russia seems a lot more fascist and Nazi-like.
Nazi in Russia refers to the forced displacement, prosecution, and rape of ethnic Russians and Communists by the invading Nazi forces throughout the war. The Nazis had a much different view on Western Europeans than they did on Slavs and Jews and Communists, so is this surprising at all?
Whereas the West was treated more or less as though under military occupation (see: France, Norway), the goal of the Nazis during Barbarossa was the extermination of the Slavic peoples.
There were literal swatika wearing Nazis among other far right groups leading the 2014 Euromaiden protests that kicked out the Russian backed president in Ukraine. The leftist groups were anti-protest and also anti-government.
I guess it's just a "happy accident" that it works to that effect, even if it was never intended.
In your comment you use the words "he can't diss someone if he has a same trait as them"
He isn't dissing. He's accusing the west of putting a Jew in charge in order to downplay accusations of Ukraine becoming a hotbed for Neo-Nazis.
And to reiterate what eight said in the other comment, you read what he was saying and took it to mean he was insulting him for being Jewish?
You are telling on yourself.
I don't see how it's remotely relevant to the point he is trying to make, or how it is funny. Putin's jewishness has no bearing on it
'that sneaky [...] only got his job by being [...] and was put in charge by the cabal running western society' is classic denazification rhetoric
