Resumen de Far-right Movements and Ideology in Contemporary Ukraine: Formidable Image vs. Weak Essence
Who wants Ukraine to look radical? Nationalists have never belonged to the large financial capital / political elite, which largely explains their inability to have a decisive say in the decision-making process.
Ukrainian nationalism should be perceived as a complex phenomenon the roots of which need to be discovered back in the times of imperial Russia and the interwar period.
Over the past decade since 2004 Russia has invested handsomely in the creation of the image of a “fascist Ukraine” ruled by weak and strongly anti-Russian elites as the antagonist to a staunchly anti-fascist, conservative, Christian Rus.
In some sense Ukrainian political elites significantly facilitated Russian efforts by committing strategic blunders.
Starting from the mid-2000s Russian public consciousness was increasingly accustomed to making associations between such notions as “Ukraine”, “ultranationalism”, “ethnic nationalism” and “neo-fascism”.
Violent provocations, explicit antisemitism and indiscriminate ethnic nationalism precipitated a dramatic collapse in the popularity of the far-right nationalist parties.
From Moscow’s perspective, the portrayal of Ukraine as a semifascist state is meant to ensure public mobilisation around the president granting him unprecedented levels of public support for actions that might have been disapproved of otherwise.
