Who Are You Calling Fascist, Putin?

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, Moscow has insisted that the Euromaidan protests against the pro-Russian regime of Viktor Yanukovych were driven by far-right groups, fascists, or even “neo-Nazis” and that Yanukovych’s downfall has brought these dark forces into the corridors of power. These claims are echoed by Kremlin-friendly Western commentators on the left (the Nation’s Stephen Cohen) and the paleocon right (Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo). Far-right extremism in Ukraine is indeed a worrisome problem. But the alarmist narrative of “neofascists in Kiev” is vastly exaggerated, more often than not with the blatant goal of discrediting a pro-democracy, pro-Western government—a bias all the more glaring when the alarmists ignore the rise of de facto fascism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its startling connections to ultra-right nationalism in Europe.