THE SO-CALLED KIEV DEMOCRATS ARE NOT ANGELS

In the eyes of many ethnic Russians, it is the Ukrainian nationalists who are the Nazis. The Russians have asserted quite accurately, that the revolution that overthrew a pro-Russian, democratically elected leader has resulted in the elevation of Russophobe fascists into key government positions. For example, the new secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council is Andriy Parububiy. He was appointed after leading the anti-government riots. In 1991, he co-founded the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) together with Oleh Tyahnybok. In 2013-14 Parubiy was a commandant of the Euromaidan. He was coordinator of the volunteeer security corps for the mainstream protesters. Ukraine's new deputy secretary of national security is Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector group which flies the old flag of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators at its parties.

Another creator of the SNPU is Oleh Tyahnybok, a high profile leader of the Kiev protests who has blamed Ukraine's problems on a Jewish conspiracy run out of Moscow. Oleh Tyahnybok is a Ukrainian far-right politician and a member of the Verkhovna Rada; the leader of the nationalists All Ukrainian Union "Svoboda". His political party has been cricized for its anti-semitic and anti-Polish demonstrations.

Tyahnybok regards Russia as Ukraine's biggest threat. He accused the Medvedev presidency of "waging virtual war on Ukraine along many fronts- in the information sphere and the diplomatic sector, within the energy trade and throughout the world of international PR spin. He is pro-NATO and critical of the European Union, but supports a Europe of free nations. Tyahnybok also wants to deprive Crimea of its autonomous status and Sevastopol of its special status. He wants to introduce a 'nationality' section into the Ukrainian passport, a visa regime with Russia, and for Ukrainians to pass a Ukrainian language test to work in the civil service.

In this situation, who exactly are the Nazis? Putin's ethnic Russian nationalists? Or the fringe of the ethnic Ukrainian nationalists?

Ukraine falls within Russia's historical sphere of influence. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until two decades agao (whereas Crimea was part of Russia until 1954), the country contains millions of ethnic Russians and, crucially, it has Russian military installations that are key to Russia's strategic interests.