(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjw6ep37469o)
‘Parliament speaker’? I went and did the mandatory nazi check on him. It’s not even a tenuous link - right at the top of his Wikipedia page:
"In 1991 he founded the far-right Social-National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok; the party combined radical nationalism and neo-Nazi features (by its name and the “Wolfsangel”-like sign). In 1998–2004 Parubiy led the paramilitary organization of SNPU, the Patriot of Ukraine.
Literal Banderite Neo Nazi. Could not be a more blatant nazi if he tried.
Another article I found states:
UKRAINIAN progressives called today for the immediate dismissal of parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy after he said on TV that Hitler had been history’s “greatest democrat.”
condemnation of these remarks came from Communist Party of Ukraine leader Petro Symonenko
This part was in fact propaganda, taken out of context by Russian media. I did not do proper research (as I admitted in making the post, but still). Thank you to the commenter who alerted me to this fact.
And yet, the it’s on the front page of the ‘neutral’ BBC, with absolutely no mention his past at all. They only state that he helped bring down Yanukovich in Maidan times.
They go as far as giving these rather revealing quotes, once you know the context:
"Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described Parubiy as “a patriot and statesman who made an enormous contribution to the defence of Ukraine’s freedom, independence and sovereignty”.
Sybiha added: “He was a man who rightfully belongs in the history books.”
Former President Petro Poroshenko said the killing of Parubiy was “a shot fired at the heart of Ukraine”.
“Andriy was a great man and a true friend. That is why they take revenge, that is what they are afraid of,” he wrote on Telegram, pointing to Parubiy’s contribution to building the Ukrainian army."
Well I never…
Parubiy organized the snipers who murdered people to spark the Euromaiden coup, led the right-wing rioters who torched leftists alive in the Odessa trade union building, and led the ultra-nationalist’s ethnic cleansing in the Donbass in 2014 that started the war. He’s Nazi enough for me.
Regarding the incident you quoted, it’s worth noting that the context was a law which allowed the expansion of minority rights (e.g. state-recognition of the Russian language) by direct democracy.
Parubiy was against any recognition of Russian minority rights in Ukraine because he was an ultra-nationalist—that was his only guiding principle. In order to defend the post-Maidan state’s repealing of these minority privileges, he cynically compared direct democracy to actions taken by Hitler:
This is similar to alt-right Republicans comparing feminism to Nazism: He didn’t say it because he hated Hitler; he said it because he knew his enemies hated Hitler.
It was indeed a mistake by pro-Eastern media to interpret his “Hitler loved direct democracy!” comment as praising Hitler (although I can see why they made the error), but Parubiy’s comments were also certainly not an earnest rebuke of far-right politics.