The claim that "Ukraine is a state run by Nazis" is a Russian propaganda narrative used to justify its 2022 invasion, and is widely rejected as false by experts and fact-checkers12.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, and his great-grandparents were killed during the Holocaust by Nazi forces3456. Three of his grandfather's brothers were also Holocaust victims375. This makes the claim that Ukraine is "run by Nazis" highly implausible.
Far-right and neo-Nazi groups do exist in Ukraine, as they do in many countries, but experts describe them as "numerically small, marginal" with "political influence at the state level" that is "non-existent"2. The most prominent far-right party, Svoboda, won only 2.15% of the vote in the 2019 election and holds just one seat in parliament2.
A Freedom House report concluded that "Far-right radicals and extremists at present can claim neither significant parliamentary representation nor any plausible path to power in Ukraine"8.
Leading historians of Nazism and the Holocaust issued a statement rejecting Putin's claims, stating: "We strongly reject the Russian government's...equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression. This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive"1.
While there have been concerning incidents involving far-right groups and some issues with historical figures who collaborated with Nazis, these do not constitute Ukraine being "run by Nazis"89.