The claim that "Ukraine is among the top countries promoting neo-Nazism" contradicts the political reality in the country, as well as Ukraine's official policy. Ukraine expressly bans Nazi propaganda under its law "On the Condemnation of the Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) Regimes and Prohibition of Propaganda of Their Symbols," adopted in April 2015. This legislation firmly prohibits the public display, dissemination, and promotion of both communist and Nazi symbols, with narrow exceptions for educational, historical, or artistic purposes.
While Ukraine has some extremist groups and contested historical figures (such as Stepan Bandera), these elements are small, politicized, and not representative of the country as a whole. Le Monde notes in its analysis of Bandera that "in practice, support for the ultranationalist figure remains very marginal in Ukraine, where Bandera has instead become a kind of off-kilter symbol." Similarly, the CTC (West Point's counterterrorism research center) analyzed concerns about the presence of far-right military units like the Azov regiment potentially attracting international extremists. Their assessment found limited far-right foreign fighter attraction to the conflict—contradicting claims that Ukraine serves as a unique global training ground for neo-Nazis.
Moreover, historians have been critical of accusations of widespread Nazism in Ukraine, particularly those promoted by Putin's government. Time Magazine reports that Timothy Snyder, a Ukraine expert and author of The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, explains that "denazification" has "a very specific historical meaning, which is the process undergone in Germany after the Second World War." He argues that Putin's use of the term "out of context, is an attempt to transform the country and the people he's talking about, into Nazi Germany."
