The woman has deleted the images, although not before they were picked up by news outlets
A court worker in Kiev has been caught sharing a photo of herself posing with a Nazi German flag, according to Ukrainian media.
Russia has for years sounded the alarm over the resurgence of Nazi ideology in Ukraine, accusing the West of deliberately ignoring far-right tendencies in the country. Moscow has named the ‘denazification’ of its neighor as among its key goals in the conflict with Ukraine.
Ukrainian outlet Telegraf and several other media shared photos on Sunday which they claimed came from the Instagram page of Anastasia Mirzak, secretary of the Svyatoshinsky Court in the Ukrainian capital. Her post could not be immediately verified.
In one photo, apparently taken during outdoor recreation with friends, Mirzak was captured holding the Reichskriegsflagge, a military flag used by the Third Reich during the Second World War, which features a swastika.
Another photo featured Mirzak posing with a group of bare-chested men, one of whom had a tattoo of the Wolfsangel, a symbol adopted by several Nazi German units.
According to reports, Mirzak deleted the photos within ten minutes of their publication, although they were up long enough for the media to spot them.
The Strana news outlet also said Mirzak later shared a screenshot of a news article about her posing with a Nazi flag in her stories.
Telegraf reported on Monday that police have launched criminal proceedings against the court worker over the display of illegal symbols. Legal expert Radislav Kravtz told the outlet that Mirzak could be dismissed from her post and faces a prison sentence if found guilty of deliberate propaganda.
Nazi symbols have been banned in Ukraine since 2015. Despite this, the authorities have erected monuments and named streets in honor of Ukrainian nationalist leaders who collaborated with Adolf Hitler’s forces during the Second World War. Right-wing groups also frequently stage torch-lit rallies in Kiev and other cities.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stated that by arming and funding Ukraine, “Western Europe has once again found itself under a Nazi flag by committing to a completely misguided, disastrous venture of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia.”
