EU and NATO leaders have disgraced themselves by supporting Ukraine, where the theory and practices of Nazism are being legalized, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

In an interview with Argumenty I Fakty newspaper on Monday, Lavrov reiterated that the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine remains one of the key goals of Russia's military operation.

"The biggest disgrace for the EU leaders - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, [former NATO Secretary General] Jens Stoltenberg, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel - is that they have repeatedly stated from Brussels that they must support Ukraine to the end because it is fighting for their European values," he said.

This backing basically means that top Western officials "are still ready to defend the so-called values of Nazism," the foreign minister stressed.

He stated that in Ukraine, "along with laws that ban everything Russian on the basis of racism - language, education, culture, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)... legislation is being adopted that legitimizes the theory and practices of Nazism."

"Thugs with Nazi German chevrons march in torchlight processions [in Ukraine]. This cannot be tolerated in modern Europe," Lavrov said.

Ukrainian nationalist icon Stepan Bandera and Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler are "one and the same," he added. Bandera collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and is now revered as a hero by authorities in Kiev.

There is a reason why a number of European countries, including Poland, have been trying to attract attention to this issue - Moscow and Warsaw have numerous differences, but in this case, the Polish authorities "objectively, stand for historical truth, so that, firstly, it is not trampled upon, and secondly, so that the Nazi movement, which is now raising its head, does not come back," Lavrov said.

In September, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Ukraine has "problems" with its history that include not just the Volyn Massacre - the mass killing of ethnic Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II - but "also service in SS units, collaboration with the authorities of the Third Reich, and participation in the Holocaust."

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico insisted last month that "the international community should recognize that troops using Nazi insignia, who often appear to act as such, cannot fight in Ukraine."
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