Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that "Western powers installed the Jewish Volodymyr Zelensky as the President of Ukraine to conceal the glorification of Nazis."
On the 5th (local time), President Putin made this statement in response to a question from journalist Pavel Zaubin during an interview on Russian state television, according to major foreign media reports. It was noted that President Putin did not provide evidence to support this claim.
Russia refers to its invasion of Ukraine not as a war but as a "special military operation," asserting the legitimacy of the operation by stating it is to protect millions of Russian speakers in areas such as Donbas, Ukraine, who are being subjected to mass killings by neo-Nazi forces.
President Zelensky is Jewish and comes from a family of Auschwitz (Jewish extermination camp) survivors. President Zelensky has dismissed Russia's claims that Ukrainian leaders support neo-Nazis as false, revealing that his grandfather’s brothers were victims of the Holocaust (Nazi genocide of Jews).
President Putin also stated at a meeting of the "Russian Victory Organizing Committee," a presidential advisory body discussing patriotic education and veteran affairs, that "Russia is not fighting Ukrainians but is conducting a special military operation against 'Banderites' (Ukrainian nationalist groups) and their followers," according to local media such as TASS news agency.
Banderites refer to followers of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian far-right nationalist who collaborated with the Nazis and led a nationalist movement using brutal methods.
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