Ukraine is not a Nazi state and there is no plan to depopulate the Earth

The post spreads pro-Kremlin narratives, which have been debunked by world fact-checking services such as Truthmeter.mk numerous times. Ukraine is not a Nazi state, nor is there any plan to depopulate the population. These views are spread by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to justify his attack on Ukraine, which he refers to as a “special military operation” 

 

We analyze a Facebook post which claims Ukrainians are Nazis and promotes the conspiracy theory surrounding the collective West and the “golden billion.” 

Greetings Ukronazistia [portmanteau of Ukraine and Nazism] and the “collective West” / ”the golden billion,” says the post.  

It is not the first time disinformation has spread which claims Ukraine, as well as its current leadership, is Nazi. These narratives are spread by supporters of the Russian aggression and the Russian President Vladimir Putin, which among other things, tries to justify the attack on Ukraine with its “denazification.” 

The story about the alleged Nazism derives from World War 2 and the then Ukrainian opposition politician Stepan Bandera, as well as from the initial excitement of the entry of the German troops among some of the Ukrainians living in the region of Galicia. However, the German leadership very quickly showed that its intention is a pure occupation of Ukraine, which until then was part of the Soviet Union (USSR). 

The current Ukrainian government is not fascist, nor dictatorial, or in any way connected to the Nazi past. President Volodymyr Zelensky was democratically elected in a fair election, receiving 73 percent of the vote in the 2019 presidential elections. There are indeed extremist right-wing forces in Ukraine, however, they are weak in comparison with other European countries. In other words, Nazi groups that exist in modern Ukraine, as well as in other countries, have no influence over the Parliament, are not part of the government and cannot serve as an excuse for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  

Ukraine banned the promotion of Nazism in 2015. Russian state media outlets have been describing Ukraine as a “Nazi state” since 2014, which is interesting since data show the number of texts and articles which connect Ukraine to Nazism, have sharply increased on the day of the invasion, assessed the Italian institute ISPI. 

The EUvsDisinfo database contains almost 500 examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation claims about “Nazi/fascist Ukraine.” 

When it comes to the mention of the collective West and the “golden billion,” it is an old conspiracy theory, according to which, the world elite wants to seize the resources and wealth for themselves, while the rest of the inhabitants of the planet remain in poverty and hunger.  

This conspiracy theory is often invoked in speeches by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as by other senior Kremlin officials, as a line of attack against the West, as the war in Ukraine unfolds. In that context, in July of 2022, during his speech in Moscow, Putin said:  

The model of complete dominance of the so-called golden billion is unjust.  

He then asked: 

Why should this golden billion of the entire population of the globe dominate over everyone and impose its own rules of behavior?  

In the context of the depopulation conspiracy theory and “Satanists,” it is worth mentioning that conspiracy theorists have often referenced Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030 of the UN. Truthmeter.mk has already covered this topic numerous times.  

It is worth noting that Agenda 21 was one of several items on the agenda of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The agenda included 31 items. All items refer to global social and economic dimensions, conservation and management of resources, strengthening the role of women, children and workers, as well as proposed methods of implementation.  

As Associated Press fact checkers have written in 2020, from the beginning, the goals of Agenda 21 have been the target of conspiracy theories, such as that of depopulation, even though Agenda 21 does not mention at all that the goal is to reduce the population to a specific number.  

Fact checkers at Full Fact have explained in a similar manner that Agenda 21 is not a global plan to depopulate humankind. Agenda 21 is a 351-page document under the umbrella of the UN that specifies goals for sustainable development.  

The document mentions there is a growing population in some parts of the country, however, Full Fact could not find any reference to the declining world population. Agenda 21 was also misused in disinformation that emerged during the Covid pandemic, more specifically about a false claim that this document promotes mandatory vaccination, which is also not true. On the other hand, it is the Russian military invasion that led to increased mortality in Ukraine, and it is directly responsible for the depopulation of this country, a topic which Truthmeter.mk also covered.  

When it comes to Agenda 2030, it is a document for sustainable development agreed to by member states of the United Nations in 2015, which includes 17 global goals that cover issues such as reducing inequality and preventing world hunger. 

The goals of Agenda 2030 are to end poverty in all its forms everywhere, together with the eradication of hunger, to ensure food security and better nutrition and to promote sustainable agriculture, to enable healthy lives and well-being for all age groups, to ensure inclusive and quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all, achieve gender equality, encourage and empower women and girls, to ensure good water management, to ensure the availability of a cheap, reliable and modern energy system, to promote economic growth, decent work for all, to build resilient infrastructure, to reduce inequality among countries, to make cities inclusive, safe and sustainable, to take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects, to conserve oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development, to protect terrestrial ecosystems, to manage forests, to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, to enable justice for all, to build inclusive institutions at all levels.  

From all the above, we can conclude the post spreads pro-Kremlin narratives which world fact-checking services such as Truthmeter.mk have already debunked numerous times. Ukraine is not a Nazi state, nor is there any plan to depopulate the population.  

These views are spread by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to justify his attack on Ukraine, which he refers to as a “special military operation.” For that reason, we assess the post as untrue.  

 

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