to expand its mission.) During the Crimean crisis, Russian media echoed the Russian government's assertions that Russian troops were not involved, and that Ukrainian nationalists from western Ukraine and Kyiv were assaulting and killing Russians in Crimea. They claimed that a bus in Simferopol carried members of Right Sector who attacked Crimean residents, although footage showed a bus with Crimean license plates transporting men armed with Russian weapons after roads to Crimea had been blocked by Russian soldiers. Russia 24 used footage of Maidan square in Kyiv to support its claims of chaos in Simferopol, Crimea. Claims of violence and suppression against Russian-speakers in Ukraine were used to justify the Russian military intervention in Crimea. Ukrainians "fascists" Joshua Yaffa of The New Republic reported a "propaganda onslaught unprecedented in the post-Soviet era, implying or inventing dark suspicions about Western motives in Ukraine while painting Russia's own meddling as a heroic answer to the call of justice." In an interview with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Peter Pomerantsev said, "The Kremlin has reinvented the conflict in Ukraine as a genocide against Russians. People believe that the fascists are coming to get them, because that's what they have seen on TV, or that the CIA is behind massacres in Ukraine." Ingo Mannteufel of Deutsche Welle reported that "Kremlin-run media outlets have been hammering the Russian people and foreign audiences with messages that "fascist politicians and US intelligence agencies" have taken over neighboring Ukraine". Russian media focused particularly on Right Sector, portraying the group as powerful, fascist, and neo-Nazi and saying that it was persecuting Russian-speakers and Jews. Writing for Foreign Policy, Hanna Kozlowska stated that Russian propaganda tried to demonize the Ukraine government and build a case for the annexation of Crimea by depicting Right Sector as a powerful neo-Nazi group that might take control of Ukraine. During the first half of 2014, Right Sector was the second-most mentioned political group in online Russian mass media. The Associated Press and other international news organizations found no evidence that the group had committed hate crimes. Right Sector and other far-right candidates had poor results in both the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election and parliamentary elections. Josef Zissels, chairman of the Vaad Association of Jewish Organization and Communities of Ukraine, stated: "The failure of the ultranationalists reflects a reality which we have been trying to represent all the time despite Russian propaganda's attempt