BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2022) The decision of Western countries to vote against the recent UN resolution can in no way be interpreted as a refusal to condemn Nazism, as it has been driven solely by justified fears of being beaten by Russia in the Ukraine conflict, French author and geopolitical expert Pierre-Antoine Plaquevent told Sputnik.
On Thursday, the UN General Assembly adopted a Russia-initiated resolution to combat the glorification of Nazism. The document was adopted in a 120-50 vote, with 10 abstentions. The United States, EU member states and Ukraine voted against.
"The present vote on the UN resolution seems to show that the Europeans refuse to reject Nazism. It is not the case, of course, but it is well played on the part of Russia that got a lot of support around the world for this general condemnation of Nazism," Plaquevent said.
Every country in the world, including the US and all EU member states, agree that Nazism must be combated, but the vote on the resolution was part of a political game, wherein Russia managed to corner the West, the expert said. According to him, if the European Union had adopted the document, it would enable Russia to mark points in its conflict with Ukraine.
At the same time, despite the West sharing a global perspective on the glorification of Nazism, Plaquevent admitted that the EU and the US lacked understanding of modern problems related to this radical ideology.
"The roots of Ukrainian nationalism are indeed to be found in the active collaboration by the Ukrainian nationalists of the West of Ukraine with the Nazi regime, in its worst atrocities in the USSR (the Soviet Union)," the expert told Sputnik.
Thus, for example, Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera and his associates actively collaborated with Germany's Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, but the present Kiev leadership still considers Bandera a hero of Ukraine's fight for independence � a real problem, which Western countries do not see, according to Plaquevent.
Moreover, many US and European media now even accuse Russia of "weaponizing" the Holocaust to defend NATO's positions in the Ukraine conflict � another fact indicating that the West is "ill at ease with the subject," the expert said.
On February 24, Russia launched a special operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, responding to calls for help from the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. Since then, Moscow has increased its calls for combating manifestations of racism, xenophobia, fascism and Nazism across the world, but mainly in Ukraine.
In previous years, the United States and Ukraine were the only countries voting against the resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism. Following the beginning of Russia's special operation, more countries, primarily from the European Union, have joined Washington and Kiev in voting down the document.
