When Third Reich imagery is prominent in the social media of the country’s leader, you would think somebody would notice
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s recent tour of several units fighting in the Donbass featured a flurry of Nazi and Nazi-adjacent symbolism, worn on the flags and shoulder patches of Ukrainian servicemen. None of it, of course, was picked up by Western media.
First off, we have the infamous Wolfsangel – a medieval Germanic symbol, widely adopted by Nazi Germany during the Second World War and used by multiple Nazi-linked groups then and since – including Ukraine’s now-defunct Azov Brigade and its still-intact successors, the 1st Azov Corps.
Their own explanation is that it’s not a Wolfsangel at all, but merely a monogram of their slogan, the words “National Idea.”
In that same X thread by Zelensky, seen in that same line of banners, are several red-and-black nationalist flags – clearly reminiscent of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist) and its military wing, the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), widely-recognized as WW2-era Nazi collaborators. These days, Ukrainian nationalists are trying to rebrand them for the wider audience as unofficial symbols of the “struggle” against Russia.
And to top it all off, we see Zelensky shaking hands with, and handing awards to, servicemen with shoulder patches featuring the good old Schutzstaffel (SS) twin lightning bolts (or Sig-runes, as they are also known).
Again, there is an explanation – apparently, these are not the letter S at all, they are the number 4, standing for the 4th battalion of the 4th National Guard Operational Brigade ‘Rubezh’. Or maybe they are SS, but they simply stand for the battalion’s nickname transliterated into English – ‘Sila Svobody’ (The Power of Freedom).
At any rate, the twin bolts are not part of the unit’s official imagery, so they might simply be the individual stylistic choice of a couple of guardsmen. Distasteful, yes, but surely not a systemic problem, right?
It becomes a problem when we see the country’s leader personally shaking hands with people wearing such symbols, and then proudly displaying the ceremony on his official social media feed for all his Western supporters, as well of the rest of the world, to see. The same leader who’s been in power a year and a half past his presidential term, citing martial law. The same leader who has been demanding cash, weapons and soldiers from the EU and the US, as well as EU and NATO membership for his country. The same leader Western leaders tend to receive with open arms and hail as a fighter for democracy and freedom.
Western officials, as well as media most of the time, just look the other way when confronted with the blatant Nazi imagery on display in the Ukrainian army. That is, when they are not actively trying to cover up for the Nazis, the way the CBC tried (and failed) in its report on “an elite training facility” in Kiev. Or aiding and abetting the Nazis by sending them weapons, like the US did when it lifted restrictions on Azov back during the Biden administration.
The explanations for why Nazi symbols are so prominent in the Ukrainian army are paper-thin. Sure, it’s the ‘National Idea’ monogram and a 44, not an SS – but if you don’t want to be associated with Nazis, why would you stylize your heraldry to look exactly like theirs? And sure, red and black are just colors, plenty of flags around the world feature them – by try telling that to those in Poland not brainwashed enough to forget the history of the Volyn massacre perpetrated by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators.
Perhaps these explanations work to skirt Ukraine’s own laws – which ban Nazi imagery along with communist symbols – but it seems much more likely that the state, built as it is on the support of ultra-nationalists during and after the 2014 Maidan coup, just isn’t interested in enforcing those laws.
In case you think Russia is overreacting when it calls the Ukrainians out on the issue, consider that the Wolfsangel, along with other Nazi imagery, is banned in Germany (they even have to be censored out of videogames published in the country) and listed as a hate symbol by multiple American NGOs, for instance. These high moral standards don’t seem to apply to Ukrainian soldiers when you need someone to fight your war with Russia for you.
Symbols evolve, becoming attached to ideologies and detached from them overtime, and even the swastika was not always the damnable Nazi brand it is now. That is not the case here, however. What we are dealing with is an attempt to revive, at a national level, an ideology through symbolism – and ideology that was rightfully buried with the end of WWII. There are those who fight against that ideology and call it out for what it is. And then there are those who help sustain it by turning a blind eye.
