Claims about NATO Ukraine is not a member of
NATO, a
collective security alliance, similar in concept to the
CSTO that Russia is a member of. Outside its member states, NATO only had a military presence in Kosovo and Iraq, at the request of their governments. NATO and Russia had co-operated until the 2014
Euromaidan, when
Russia illegally annexed Crimea. In response, Ukraine's parliament voted to end its non-aligned status and to include the goal of NATO membership in the
Constitution. NATO says it is not at war with Russia; its official policy is that it does not seek confrontation, but rather supports Ukraine in "its right to self-defense, as enshrined in the
UN Charter". Four of them share a border with Russia, and the last time a country bordering Russia joined NATO before the invasion was in 2004. In 2002, Putin said Ukraine's relationship with NATO was not Russia's concern. Ukraine applied for a NATO Membership Action Plan at the
2008 Bucharest summit. NATO refused, but Secretary-General
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared that Ukraine will become a member in the future. Since then, Russia has opposed Ukraine joining NATO, with Putin warning it would be deemed a threat. Several analysts and officials had warned against letting eastern European countries join NATO, because of the risk that Russia would see it as a threat. Shortly before
his death in a plane crash, Russian oligarch
Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian military leadership of lying about NATO aggression to justify the invasion. Prigozhin was a close confidant of Putin and his
Wagner Group played an important role in the invasion. Peter Dickinson of the
Atlantic Council suggested the real reason Putin opposes NATO is because it "prevents him from bullying Russia's neighbors".
Article 51 of the UN Charter Putin's reference to
Article 51 of the UN Charter is regarded by a number of lawyers as incorrect.
John B. Bellinger III, member of the
Council on Foreign Relations, says Article 51 of the UN Charter allowed one UN member state to give military aid to another member state; but the DPR and LPR were not UN member states and were only recognized as independent by Russia. Over 300 scholars on genocide issued a statement rejecting Russia's abuse of the term "genocide" to "justify its own violence". Ukraine brought
a case before the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) to challenge Russia's claim. The ICJ said it had not seen any evidence of genocide committed by Ukraine. Altogether,
about 14,300 people were killed in the
Donbas War, both soldiers and civilians. According to the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 6,500 were
Russian proxy forces, 4,400 were Ukrainian forces, and 3,404 were civilians on both sides of the frontline. The vast majority of civilian deaths were in the first year, The world's leading scholars of
Nazism and
the Holocaust (including Jared McBride, Francine Hirsch,
Timothy D. Snyder,
Omer Bartov,
Christoph Diekman, and others) published a statement rejecting Putin's claims, which was signed by hundreds of historians and scholars of the subject. It says: The authors say that Ukraine "has right-wing extremists and violent xenophobic groups" like any country, but "none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine". The
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum likewise condemned Putin's accusations. Putin's claims of Nazism against Ukraine are partly an attempt to drum-up support for the war. Russian propaganda has framed it as a continuation of the Soviet Union's "
Great Patriotic War" against
Nazi Germany, "even as Russia supports extreme-right groups across Europe".
The Washington Post commented that "the rhetoric of the fight against fascism resonates deeply in Russia, which suffered huge losses in the fight against Nazi Germany". Ukraine, like many countries,
has a far-right fringe, but analysts say Putin greatly exaggerated far-right influence in Ukraine; it does not have widespread support in the government, military, or electorate. Ukraine's
Azov Brigade, which had far-right origins, was a focus of Kremlin propaganda. However, by the time of the invasion, sources say that the brigade had been depoliticized. Since 2015, Nazi and communist symbols have been banned in Ukraine, and there are examples of Ukraine prosecuting neo-Nazis. Ukraine's president,
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish and has relatives who were victims of the Holocaust.
Ulrich B. Schmid, professor of Russian culture and society at the
University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, called Putin's allegation "despicable", and noted that Russia itself has many prominent far-right groups. Russian
far-right groups also played a major role among the
Russian proxy forces in Donbas.
Threat of nuclear warfare Josep Borrell, the EU representative for foreign affairs and security policy, as well as
Brookings Institution senior fellow
Michael E. O'Hanlon and
Associated Press vice president
John Daniszewski, assessed Putin's words about a possible response to intervention in the conflict as a threat to use nuclear weapons. On 27 February, Putin ordered the Minister of Defense to put the strategic deterrence forces into a special mode of combat duty. The reason for this was what he called the "unfriendly actions" of Western countries in the economic sphere, as well as the "aggressive statements" of their leaders. == International condemnation ==