Reposting this comment I saw on Reddit that outlined the "Nazis problem" in Ukraine pretty well.

Ukraine absolutely has a neo nazi problem...

In 2014 when this conflict escalated Svoboda, an actual neo nazi party was in the government, that is just a fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party)

https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/the-rise-of-the-radical-right-in-ukraine-87119.html

Article from a political scientist Andreas Umland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Umland

The SNPU’s name deliberately sounds like Hitler’s Nazi-inspired National-Socialist German Workers Party. Its symbol was the so-called Wolfsangel once used by the SS Division “Das Reich,” and today popular among various European neo-Nazi groups.

In 2004, the Social-National Party renamed itself into Svoboda and abandoned the Wolfsangel. While Svoboda remained explicitly nationalistic, it has toned down its revolutionary rhetoric in recent years.

...

Svoboda is a racist party promoting explicitly ethnocentric and anti-Semitic ideas. Its main programmatic points are Russo- and xenophobia as well as, more recently, a strict anti-immigration stance.

It is an outspoken advocate of an uncritical heroization of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – an interwar and World War II ultra-nationalist party tainted by its temporary collaboration with the Third Reich, as well as its members’ participation in genocidal actions against Poles and Jews, in western Ukraine, during German occupation.

They had a Vice Prime Ministers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleksandr_Sych

Minister of Defense of Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Tenyukh

Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Shvaika

Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Mokhnyk

and acting General Prosecutor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Makhnitskyi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

Azov Special Operations Detachment (Ukrainian: Окремий загін спеціального призначення «Азов», romanized: Okremyi zahin spetsialnoho pryznachennia "Azov"), often known as Azov Detachment, Azov Regiment (Ukrainian: Полк Азов, romanized: Polk Azov), or Azov Battalion (until September 2014), is a right-wing extremist[1] and Neo-Nazi Ukrainian National Guard unit,[2][3][4][5][6][7] based in Mariupol, in the Azov Sea coastal region.[8] It saw its first combat experience recapturing Mariupol from pro-Russian separatists forces in June 2014.[4] Azov initially formed as a volunteer militia on 5 May 2014 during the Ukrainian crisis.[9] On 12 November 2014, Azov was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine, and since then all members are contract soldiers serving in the National Guard of Ukraine.[10]

It is the difference between strawmanning or steelmanning the perspective of the opposition. Our media (Or any media for that matter) only tells half the story, they conveniently leave out everything that puts our actions into a bad light. Framing any conflict we have as if we are angels bringing democracy and freedom to the world and everyone who opposes this is a literal devil.

We trained and armed this neo nazi group in Ukraine and then these fascists used this equipment and training and turned to the russian ethnic minorities. Before the west declared a war had started over 14000 people were already killed in this conflict zone. But that was not portrayed as war because most of the killing was done by fascists trained and armed by us and this fact doesn't reflect well on us. When those 3000-4000 civilians, mostly ethnic Russian minorities in Ukraine were murdered in this conflict zone not a single one of those made the news, but now every death of an ethnic Ukrainian is portrayed as the biggest evil to have ever happened in human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

Not the whole of Ukraine needs to be neo nazi, I would also never claim this. The government has been allowing neo nazi militias to terrorize ethnic minorities since 2014 and when those people want independence they are surprised? These people basically begged Russia to help them because the west turned a blind eye.

Neo nazi millitia Azov Battalion that was incorporated into the Ukranian army by Svoboda in 2014 is still part of it.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/ukrainian-unit-accused-of-neo-nazi-links-wants-canadas-help

In 2020 the American government even said so:

Democratic Congressman John Conyers, Jr. joined forces with Republican Congressman Ted Yoho to add an amendment to the Pentagon’s defence spending request. The amendment, passed unanimously by members of both parties, blocks “the training of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary militia Azov Battalion,”

Their own spokesman even said so:

Andrey Dyachenko, a spokesman for the battalion, told USA Today in March that only 10 to 20 percent of the unit are Nazis.

David Sakvarelidze. Former Deputy General Prosecutor of Ukraine. Accidentally saying the quit part out loud in a BBC interview recently. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/t2dng5/its_very_emotional_for_me_because_i_see_european/

Staircase in Ukraine mall decorated with giant swastika https://www.timesofisrael.com/staircase-in-ukraine-mall-decorated-with-giant-swastika/ Images and footage from inside the Horodok shopping mall on Kiev’s Bandera Avenue Named after this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera#World_War_II a literal nazi.

OUN leaders Andriy Melnyk and Bandera were recruited before World War II into the Nazi Germany military intelligence Abwehr for espionage, counter-espionage and sabotage. Their goal was to run diversion activities after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. Melnyk was given code name 'Consul I'

On 30 June 1941, with the arrival of Nazi troops in Ukraine, Bandera and the OUN-B declared an independent Ukrainian state ("Act of Renewal of Ukrainian Statehood").[51] This declaration was accompanied by violent pogroms.[51] Some of the published proclamations of the formation of this state say that it would "work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Moscovite occupation." – as stated in the text of the "Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood".[43][49]

Mayor of Konotop being interviewed by PBS news has a big picture of this nazi on his wall. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russian-forces-bombard-targets-across-ukraine-as-official-warns-worst-is-yet-to-come

Tweet from 27/02/2022 Ukraine’s National Guard praised its neo-Nazi fighters from the white-supremacist Azov movement for greasing bullets with pig fat to kill Russian Muslims, demonizing them as “orcs.” https://multipolarista.com/2022/02/27/ukraine-national-guard-nazi-muslim-orcs-lard/

Its not about defending the Russian government or Putin. But this narrative that Russian people are propagandized to the extreme while we have the objective truth on our side is just delusional. Our governments and media propagandize us just as much as the propaganda from the other perspective.

I am just flabbergasted at the idea that people here believe our media has anything to do with the truth. It is all just propaganda in Russia and in the west. We are not more immune to propaganda than people living outside of the west, we absorb propaganda just as easily as all those non western people.