Propagandists are distributing photos of a supposedly Ukrainian school history textbook for high school. It calls Hitler “a German statesman and politician” who liberated the Lviv region during World War II. This information was disseminated on anonymous telegram channels in other languages, including Bulgarian, French, English and Russian. However, this is fake.

Examples of fake posts about Hitler that were refuted by German and Austrian fact checkers

AFP and the Austrian-German hub GADMO checked all current Ukrainian history textbooks and found no such page or statement. The experts they interviewed confirmed that glorifying Nazism is prohibited by Ukrainian law. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament banned propaganda of Nazi and communist regimes. All textbooks must be approved by the Ministry of Education and the Institute for Modernization of Education.

In Ukrainian schools, history begins to be taught from the fifth grade, and the Second World War in detail - from the tenth grade. All textbooks are updated every five years, with the last update occurring in 2022. AFP found that not a single textbook portrays Hitler as a “liberator”. On the contrary, it describes millions of deaths and crimes of the Nazis in Ukraine.

By spreading such false information, propagandists are trying to portray Ukraine as a country that supports Nazi ideology. The spread of fake news about Nazi ideology in Ukraine supports the Kremlin’s rhetoric about “denazification” as one of the reasons for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This creates the appearance of a moral justification for Russia's aggressive actions. The spread of such fakes may prompt international partners to doubt the need to support Ukraine, reducing economic, political and military assistance.