The Donbas secessionists want to leave because the Maidan coup started pushing the country towards Ukrainian ethnonationalism, and eastern Ukraine is very Russian. Russia did back them, but Putin did not fabricate a popular opposition to the Maidan government.
Denazification is a pretty clear objective when the entity that you are seeking to denazify has battalions that are openly and explicitly Nazi as part of their doctrine. Purge those units, prosecute former members, ban Nazi hate crimes (like greasing bullets with pig fat) and ban Nazi symbols like Swastikas and Wolfsangles. It’s really not difficult, the US military nearly passes that bar and even the German military does (though it has closeted Nazi cliques).
Ya but we’re not in a war for our very lives. Hopefully they can get around to doing it after the war. Russia also had a Nazi problem with the Wagner group and a growing antisemitism problem but for some reason you can extend critical support to them but not Ukraine?
I was talking about Russia demanding it, not Ukraine doing it of their own volition. You are genuinely delusional if you think Ukraine is interested in such a thing. The Azov Battalion formed as a paramilitary circa 2014 to spearhead the aggression on Donbas, and since then became an official part of the military, still a couple years before the invasion, along with a few other explicitly Nazi groups. This, along with lionizing Bandera, pushing holodomor shit, and advancing ethnonationalist policy shows a clear trend. In terms of “state adoption of Nazi shit” Ukraine is easily the world leader and has been for some time, even over much worse and more destructive countries like the US.
Wagner is a PMC organization. There are Nazis in it, but it’s not a doctrinally Nazi organization nor is it actually part of the Russian government like Azov is Ukraine. Russia likewise isn’t pushing fascist hoaxes or ethnonationalist policies (however much we might both dislike Putin’s revanchist rhetoric).
