Kevin Bae

Non-Social in a Socially Networked World

Are we funding Nazis in Ukraine?

The New York Times is finally reporting on Nazi symbols being worn by Ukrainian soldiers. If you’ve been paying attention to independent reporters you would have already heard about the Azov Battalion and their ties to Nazis. I guess it’s becoming such a problem now that even the New York Times has to report it.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Ukrainian government and NATO allies have posted, then quietly deleted, three seemingly innocuous photographs from their social media feeds: a soldier standing in a group, another resting in a trench and an emergency worker posing in front of a truck.

In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.

The photographs, and their deletions, highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II.

Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History – NYT

They’re not reporting though as if actual Nazis are fighting Russia. They’re reporting it as being unfortunate these Ukrainian soldiers are wearing Nazi patches on their uniforms. They’re also saying we shouldn’t be concerned about it because the symbols don’t mean what we think they mean. It’s just Ukrainian pride.

The iconography of these groups, including a skull-and-crossbones patch worn by concentration camp guards and a symbol known as the Black Sun, now appears with some regularity on the uniforms of soldiers fighting on the front line, including soldiers who say the imagery symbolizes Ukrainian sovereignty and pride, not Nazism.

Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History – NYT

After all the hullabaloo with Trump and the “Fine People Hoax” with President Biden pretty much calling Trump a Nazi White Supremacist, you’d think Biden wouldn’t want to send U.S. taxpayer dollars to support actual Nazi White Supremacists. But, no, good ole Uncle Joe can’t be called a Nazi White Supremacist for actually funding them with our money.


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