Gregory's ServerNow, everyone with the slightest understanding of the political situation in Russia knows that Putin’s initial casus belli of purifying Ukraine from nazis is bullcrap. But one must be completely disconnected from reality to argue that there are no nazis involved in this war. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of nazis in the post-soviet space—shitloads of them, although they’ve become somewhat silent, specifically in Russia, after the wave of internal cleansing performed a decade or so ago. This cleansing, involving mass arrests and disassembling of prominent nazi movements, wasn’t performed with righteous reasons, of course. Skinheads served a practical role in the 90s and early 00s in the Russian elites’ power struggles—these thugs were enforcers and cannon fodder in the street wars. When they’ve become more dangerous to the elites themselves, they’ve been disposed of.
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 The most peculiar thing is that it’s easier to witness ideological shades of grey in the takes of this war’s actual stakeholders—the people of Ukraine and Russia, whose future had been tainted by warmongering kleptocrats. But post-soviet emigrants, long-time citizens of other countries—they are en masse a different matter. They tend to consider this war as a monumental struggle between the ultimate good and the ultimate evil—no matter what you’ve done before, if you’re with the good guys, you’re a hero. |
Many Russian nazis remained underground; some fled to neighboring countries—Belarus, Ukraine, and Baltic states. The war stroke a broad division in the ranks of post-soviet far-right extremists. Some (mostly of the monarchist wing) stood behind Putin’s aggression, while others (those of the more national-socialist vector) had become even more antagonistic towards the Russian government. Wars, justified or not, attract all kinds of violent ghouls—and thus, we now have lots of weaponized nazis on both sides.
I don’t want to be misunderstood—I can’t criticize Ukraine in this matter. This country is fighting an existential war in the circumstances of constant resource hunger. They can’t afford to get picky regarding their fighting ranks. But pedestrian takes of people uninvolved in conflict, those that watch from afar, those that for decades lived in different countries—these are just baffling…
Many Russian nazis remained underground; some fled to neighboring countries—Belarus, Ukraine, and Baltic states. The war stroke a broad division in the ranks of post-soviet far-right extremists. Some (mostly of the monarchist wing) stood behind Putin’s aggression, while others (those of the more national-socialist vector) had become even more antagonistic towards the Russian government. Wars, justified or not, attract all kinds of violent ghouls—and thus, we now have lots of weaponized nazis on both sides.