Clearly, all labels often get used loosely. But Fascism and Nazism are quite different in my view and using them interchangeably, nuanced mainly by geography as the article does, is not helpful.
My understanding from studies many years ago is that fascism is primarily an ideology of state supremacy over society, whilst leaving capitalism intact. The symbol in Italy was a bunch of sticks, or fasces, which was the Roman symbol for the state and the origin of the term. Fascism leads to authoritarian rule, like an old fashioned autocracy or either of the Napoleons in some ways. Arguably, the modern west is going in that direction and fascism might be an appropriate term to use for it.
Nazism is different though. It is a totalitarian movement that springs from Social Darwinism with a dialectic of a natural law that the different races must fight each other. The strongest will then prevail. This natural law is seen as self evident and is an equivalent to the Marxist dialectic of class struggle. Nazism is about forcing the whole of society, including the state to be subservient to the racial struggle. Ultimately, it subverts the state and subordinates it to the “movement” which is in the never ending racial struggle.
It is therefore quite different to fascism. Mussolini behaved like a traditional dictator, worked through state institutions and even came to an arrangement with the Church. Unthinkable under Nazism. Hitler completely subverted the state: he left its form and theoretical constitutional protections in place but then simply bypassed them at will and all that mattered was the leadership principle. There is no end point to Nazism until the racial struggle is ended with victory. It is a pure movement. Fascism tends to be satiated once it has achieved power, as was the case with Salazar and Franco, and might easily have been with Mussolini. Fascism can be stable, Nazism cannot. Fascism is not about genocide, Nazism is. Hitler was not fascist, it is not just that he did not use the term.
Historically, the terms have been used interchangeably though by many people. This is because some of the outcomes do look similar. This is rather in the same way that people compare similarities between Bolshevism and Nazism. But those movements spring from different “natural” laws even if many outcomes look aligned.
For these reasons, modern day Russia could never be described as Nazi because Putin actually lauds the multi ethnic composition of the country. That is not consistent at all with racial struggle. It might be possible to make the label fascist work, although I would not personally apply it to modern day Russia. It probably suits western narratives to make the terms interchangeable with loose definitions though so that people ignore the real differences and simply accept the labelling as applied to the enemies our leaders want us to hate.
