[usrusr]

Sorry, I seem to have missed the well-deserved sarcasm in your statement, I guess we agree in everything but my claim about nazi self-identification.

What lead me to that claim: Just eight years of sometimes watching from afar (very far) and initially being quite confused by the occasional evidence (or what seemed like it?). Eventually I came to assume that they were effectively taught "from the same schoolbooks" (maybe not literally, but who knows) this Russian misappropriation of the term nazi and then simply applied logic: "if I'm against Russia then I guess I'm a nazi, heil whatever that guy was called!"

Quite unlikely (understatement!) that they actually are out to build a fourth reich and work on an Endlösung. I wrote "self-identify", not "are": I'm German and we like to think that we know a thing or two about actual nazism. But I wouldn't be surprised if occasionally some poor chap fell too deep into the ideological rabbit hole and inadvertently produced propaganda ammunition for Putinists. I suspect that the propaganda battle might be going much less bad for Putinists if the Ukraine was led by someone not quite as immune to being called a nazi (I guess bookies stopped taking bets for Time Person of the Year already?)