DISINFO: The tribunal should be for Ukrainian Nazis, not for Russia
SUMMARY
Volodymyr Zelenskyy asks for a tribunal for Russia, but the real tribunal should be for Ukrainian Nazis. For eight years, these Nazis assaulted the Luhansk and Donetsk region ignoring all legal regulations of war and peace and killed adults and kids in Donbas.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets alleging that a Nazi junta ruling in Ukraine persecutes ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. This claim was made to justify Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy provided the idea of a special UN tribunal to punish Russia for war crimes in Ukraine. He mentioned this in his speech to the UN General Assembly. “Punishment for tortures and humiliation of women and men. Punishment for the catastrophic turbulence that Russia provoked with its illegal war and not only for us, Ukrainians, but for the whole world”, said Zelenskyy in his address.
Russia's aggression against Ukraine was unprovoked and unjustified. Contrary to Russian claims, the Russian language is not banned in Ukraine, nor did Ukraine commit genocide in the non-government controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. None of the multiple reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine, which are regularly published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or the reports of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission come even close to referencing genocide in Ukraine.
“Nazi” is also a classic Kremlin manipulative accusation against everybody not supporting Russia. See our article “Nazi East, Nazi West, Nazi over the cuckoo´s nest”.
See also similar accusations of Kremlin disinformation in cases: Nazi Ukraine kills Russian speakers in East and wants to set up monoethnic state; Russia defends Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians from Nazis; Ukraine is openly using Nazis in its army.