kyiv, Ukraine — Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Ukrainian government and NATO allies have posted and then removed three individual photos from their social media.
In each one, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches with symbols made famous by Nazi Germany and that have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.
The photographs highlight the Ukrainian Army’s complicated relationship with Nazi symbology, a relationship forged under Soviet and German occupation during World War II.
This relationship has become particularly delicate because President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has falsely declared Ukraine to be a Nazi state to justify his invasion.
Ukraine has worked for years via legislation and military restructuring to contain a far-right fringe movement whose members wear symbols steeped in Nazi history. But Some members of these groups have been fighting Russia since it illegally annexed part of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, and are considered national heroes.
The iconography, which includes 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 lines, including soldiers who say the images symbolize Ukrainian sovereignty and pride, not Nazism.
That threatens to reinforce Putin’s propaganda. More generally, Ukraine risks bringing to life icons that the West has spent more than half a century trying to eliminate.
“We stress that Ukraine categorically condemns any manifestation of Nazism,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
The symbology has left diplomats, Western journalists and advocacy groups in a difficult position: Calling attention to the iconography risks playing along with Russian propaganda. Saying nothing allows it to spread.
Ihor Kozlovskyi, a Ukrainian religious expert and historian, said the symbols had meanings that were unique to Ukraine and should be interpreted by how Ukrainians saw them, not how they had been used elsewhere.
Russian soldiers in Ukraine have also been seen wearing Nazi-style patches, underscoring how tricky these symbols can be to interpret.
In 1941, the Nazis invaded the Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had suffered greatly under a Soviet government that engineered a famine that killed millions. Many Ukrainians initially viewed the Nazis as liberators.
Factions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its insurgent Army fought alongside the Nazis in what they saw as a fight for Ukrainian sovereignty. Members of those groups also participated in atrocities against Jewish and Polish civilians. Later in the war, some of the groups fought against the Nazis.
Some Ukrainians joined Nazi military units such as the Waffen-SS Galizien. The group’s emblem was a sky blue patch showing a lion and three crowns.
Many Ukrainians view the current war as a continuation of the fight for independence. Symbols such as the flag associated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Galizien patch have become emblems of anti-Russian resistance and national pride. That makes It is difficult to separate, based on icons, Ukrainians enraged by the Russian invasion from those who support the country’s far-right groups.
“I think the very least that can and should be done everywhere, not just in Ukraine, is not to allow far-right symbols, rhetoric and ideas to seep into public discourse,” said Michael Colborne, a researcher from the Bellingcat research group.
By: Thomas Gibbons-Neff
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6761203, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-14 20:00:08
#explains #Ukrainian #armys #dilemma #Nazi #symbols