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Ukraine War: Putin's Victory Day speech fact-checked

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President Putin waving at Moscow Victory Day paradeImage source, EPA

President Putin has addressed a military parade in Moscow to mark victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, and made a number of claims about Ukraine and Nato.

We've checked some of the things he said.

"Kyiv has declared that it could obtain nuclear weapons"

President Putin has repeatedly said Ukraine plans to acquire nuclear weapons as a justification for Russia's invasion, although there's no evidence this is the case.

When it was part of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine did have nuclear weapons, but gave these up in the 1990s in return for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia.

Last year, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, suggested if Ukraine couldn't join Nato, it might have to reconsider its nuclear-free status.

"Either we are part of an alliance such as Nato... or we have the only option - to arm by ourselves, and maybe think about nuclear status again."

However, the Ukrainian government has not expressed an intention to acquire nuclear weapons and a military strategy document published last year did not refer to them.

Image source, AFP
Image caption,
A nuclear-weapons-capable bomber being dismantled in Ukraine

A report by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in March noted that even if Ukraine wanted nuclear weapons, it would face major logistical and technical challenges in creating weapons-grade nuclear material and having the means to deliver it.

It would also mean Ukraine breaking its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it joined in 1994. This bars countries which don't have nuclear weapons from acquiring them.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says it has seen no signs in Ukraine "of the diversion of nuclear material, intended for peaceful activities, for other purposes."

"There was every indication that a clash with neo-Nazis and Banderites - backed by the US and its junior partners - was unavoidable"

President Putin has frequently claimed the presence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine as a justification for Russia's invasion.

At the last parliamentary election in 2019, support for far-right candidates was just 2% - far lower than in many other European countries.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and members of his family died in the Holocaust.

In the 2019 presidential election which Mr Zelensky won, the main far-right candidate won just 1.6% of the vote.

But there have been far-right groups in Ukraine - the most high-profile is the Azov regiment - elements of which have expressed support for Nazi ideology.

It was formed to resist Russian-backed separatists, who seized areas of eastern Ukraine in 2014, and was subsequently absorbed as a unit within the Ukrainian military.

The term "Banderites" refers to supporters of the World War Two nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who expressed anti-Semitic views and for a time collaborated with Nazi Germany.

He remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine, some hailing him as a patriotic nationalist, others condemning him for his Nazi sympathies.

Media caption,

Putin’s false Nazi claims about Ukraine

"The Nato bloc launched an active military build-up on the territories adjacent to us... We saw how military infrastructure was being rolled out, how hundreds of foreign advisers started operating. Regular deliveries of cutting-edge weapons from Nato countries were deployed"

President Putin appears to be suggesting, not only that Nato has been expanding its influence in the Baltic states which are Nato members - but also inside Ukraine, which is not in Nato.

It's true that Nato allies have supported Ukraine with equipment and training since 2014, and they have deployed more forces to some Nato member states in eastern Europe.

Nato stepped up assistance to Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, and military trainers from Nato member states have had a presence in the country.

The US had around 150 military trainers in Ukraine (whom it pulled out in February as the threat of a Russian invasion grew), and the UK had at one point a similar number, with other countries having smaller training missions.

Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
British and Ukrainian soldiers training together in 2014

The US and the UK had supplied limited numbers of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine before the war started, but it's clear that there has been much more foreign military aid flowing to Ukraine in response to Russia's invasion.

Nato says that its deployments in eastern Europe after 2014 - four battle groups in the Baltic states and Poland - amounted to only 5,000 troops. "Before Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, there were no allied troops in the eastern part of the [Nato] alliance," it says.

It also says that further Nato military activity in eastern Europe has been in response to Russia's own build up near Ukraine, which went on for many weeks before it invaded in late February.

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