“[Nazi] iconography, 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.”
The excerpt characterizes the entirety of a very belated but telling article in the June 5 New York Times, reporting that large numbers of Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters and some Ukrainian military press officers and other officials are Nazis, but neither the Times nor any other NATO-loyal organization will say so, “because President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has falsely declared Ukraine to be a Nazi state, a claim he has used to justify his illegal invasion.” So, says the Times, we will delete photographs which would illustrate this fact to the world, or say that they have a “special Ukrainian meaning.”
The article cites the Anti-Defamation League, for example—it officially calls the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head of Nazi concentration camp guards, a “common hate symbol,” but spokesman Jake Harman says of it when worn by Ukrainian military, that one can’t “make an inference about the wearer or the Ukrainian Army.”
The Times called the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to warn it about a Totenkopf soldier whose picture was prominently posted on the Ministry’s website, and the response was, “After studying this case, we came to the conclusion that this logo can be interpreted ambiguously.” But the Times admits that most soldiers of the Da Vinci Wolves, which started out as the paramilitaries of Ukraine’s Right Sector, wear them on their uniforms now, and their leader is a national hero whose funeral was attended by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Other photos, since deleted, have shown Totenköpfe worn by an emergency worker, a Ukrainian civilian press officer, and a female soldier whose picture made it onto NATO’s Twitter account, although NATO “does not allow such patches.”
