War in Ukraine: at the heart of a nationalist movement fighting the Russian army
adimir Putin made it a justification for the Russian invasion: he wants to "denazify" Ukraine. According to Kremlin propaganda, the country is now in the hands of nationalist movements that have been fighting in the Donbass since 2014. Our special envoys in kyiv met with members of one of these groups, who train Ukrainian Territorial Defense volunteers .
In the name of national defense, Ukrainian civilians join units of young volunteers who fight the Russian army. Some of these groups with a nationalist or even ultranationalist ideology have a sulphurous reputation.
This is the case of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which has existed for almost a century and was already fighting pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass in 2014. The OUN actively collaborated with the Nazis before and during the Second World War, in the name of the common struggle against the Soviets.
This group, like the Azov Regiment or Pravi Sektor, are at the heart of Russian propaganda, which claims that Ukraine is in the hands of the Nazis.
Oleg Magdych, a former pastor who supervises the unit of young volunteers OUN-Bortnichi, affirms for his part that extremist positions are in the minority in the ranks of the organization. "Some members go too far, but they are not representative of these organizations. Putin calls us Nazis, I answer him that it is not us who kill civilians. We love our country, does that make of us Nazis? I don't think so."
Since the Russian invasion, the OUN says it has deployed more than 500 fighters, many of them around kyiv, which concentrates most of their effort.
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