Putin's use of Nazi rhetoric is not new according to historian Timothy Snyder

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed his recent invasion of Ukraine as a "de-nazification" of the country. This is not a new move by Putin. In fact, he used this same rhetoric to attack the Ukranian protesters during the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Back in 2014 historian Timothy Snyder talked to NPR's Robert Siegel about fascism in Ukraine and the rise of Stalinism in Russia. He told Siegel that calling Ukranians Nazis is both a way to confuse the European Union - because they know Nazis were bad - and a way to garner pro-Russian sentiment.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Unfortunately, a lot of this is not new.
0:09.2	If you've been paying attention to the way Russia has attempted to frame its invasion of Ukraine as so-called denazification, it comes from a playbook President Putin has turned to before.
0:21.1	Think back to 2014.
0:22.7	Russia was annexing the Crimean Peninsula.
0:25.1	Big protests were ramping up in Kiev over Ukraine's then-president, backing away from a deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia.
0:34.5	As all of that was going on, the Russian propaganda machine was running at full
0:38.4	force, calling the protesters in Kiev Nazis. Back then, NPR's Robert Siegel talked to historian
0:44.7	Timothy Snyder, author of the book Bloodland, Europe between Hitler and Stalin. And Snyder explained
0:50.6	why Putin kept pushing that talking point and how it affects the rest of the world watching.
0:55.8	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:00.6	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
1:07.2	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand
1:11.7	why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever
1:17.6	you get your podcasts. What does it mean when the wolf cries wolf? Timothy Snyder poses that question
1:26.5	referring to leaders and propagandists in Ukraine
1:29.1	and Russia, who denounce the protesters in Kiev's Independent Square as fascists. Snyder is a Yale
1:35.8	historian who writes about Ukraine in a forthcoming issue of the New York Review of Books. He joins
1:40.5	us now from Vienna. Welcome to the program. Very glad to talk to you.
1:44.7	We commonly say that Ukraine is torn between people who want their country inside the European
1:49.2	Union and those who favor closer ties with Russia. I gather closer ties with Russia would mean
1:54.7	membership in something that you write about and that I'd like you to describe the Eurasian Union.
1:59.7	Yeah, I mean, first of all, before we get into all the geopolitics, I would just want to stress that Ukrainians are people like you and me,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.