As Ukraine becomes increasingly dominated by Nazi ideology, the evidence reveals itself in peculiar ways. On April 30, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense tweeted a cartoon of the immediate aftermath of its explosion against a fuel depot in Sevastopol, Crimea, next to a caricature of the Hindu goddess Kali in a fashion similar to Marilyn Monroe’s iconic pose. In this grotesque depiction of the Hindu goddess, whose worship is known for destroying negative tendencies or defeating rivals, Kali’s dress is the flared out mushroom cloud of the blast in Sevastopol, while her legs extend down to the blast site, in the caricature of Monroe’s pose. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense accompanied the drawing of Kali’s likeness to Marilyn Monroe by Ukrainian artist Maksym Palenko, with a short caption reading “Work of Art,” and entitling the cartoon, “Sevastopol Today!”
The tweet was seen by almost a million people before the Ukrainian government account removed it, due to the massive outrage on Twitter. Indian users of the social media platform said that their goddess Kali was being “mocked.” According to RT, Twitter users also tagged Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, urging them to take action.
While the reaction from the general population was serious, the Indian government responses have a far sharper dimension, due to potential blowback on Ukraine and their incessant demand for support in the war. According to RT, Senior Advisor at the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Kanchan Gupta took aim at the tweet, calling it an example of “brazen hate speech,” and saying no other government had ever done such a thing. Further, Gupta referenced Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova’s April 11 visit to India to request more assistance, and said that Ukraine’s diplomatic advances towards India are all “fakery,” and that the cartoon shows the “real face” of the Ukrainian authorities. “This is an assault on Hindu sentiments around the world,” he added. (https://twitter.com/KanchanGupta/status/1652568695758262273?)
In response to the backlash, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense deleted the tweet on April 30, but not before this incident exposed their Ubermensch proclivities.
