In an article titled “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History,” the New York Times admits that Nazi symbols are common place in Ukraine. Instead of condemning the Nazis, the New York Times instead worries that “Troops’ use of patches bearing Nazi emblems risks fueling Russian propaganda and spreading imagery that the West has spent a half-century trying to eliminate.” What they are saying is that Nazi emblems are common but Ukrainian Nazism is Russian propaganda so Ukrainian troops need to stop displaying their Nazism in the open. What a convoluted argument - they really have tied themselves in knots admitting to the open use of Nazi symbols while simultaneously defending the US proxy war in Ukraine.
Let’s see what else these propagandists for empire get up to in this article.
Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Ukrainian government and NATO allies have posted, then quietly deleted, three seemingly innocuous photographs from their social media feeds: a soldier standing in a group, another resting in a trench and an emergency worker posing in front of a truck.
It starts off quite well with this opening paragraph. This is accurate, though often times these photographs are not even deleted. Also the internet never forgets, so these photographs are still easy to find even after deletion. The photographs were deleted because they contained overt Nazi symbols. To continue with the NYT narrative:
The photographs, and their deletions, highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II.
That relationship has become especially delicate 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.
Now this is a real whopper. What is complicated about the Ukrainian military’s relationship with Nazi imagery? It seems pretty simple to me. They display Nazi imagery, they’re Nazis. Also how exactly was Ukraine occupied by the Soviets during World War II? Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, one of many Soviet Socialist Republics. Nazis occupied Ukraine. Ukraine was not occupied by Soviets, who were defending Ukraine from Nazi invaders. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists did attempt to declare independence at the time, but were not a legitimate government. Here is what the The Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood had to say:
The newly formed Ukrainian state will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Moscovite occupation.
The OUN proudly declared they were to work closely with Adolf Hitler to form a new order in Europe and the world. When The New York Times talks of Soviet occupation, they are parroting the Nazi collaborators of the OUN with their claims of Muscovite occupation.
The NYT follows this up with another clear lie:
Ukraine has worked for years through legislation and military restructuring to contain a fringe far-right movement whose members proudly wear symbols steeped in Nazi history and espouse views hostile to leftists, L.G.B.T.Q. movements and ethnic minorities.
Much of the legislation passed since the Maidan coup in 2014 has encouraged far right movements, not contained them. It was leftist parties that were banned in Ukraine, not Nazi parties. The Guardian described one of these laws which was passed in April, 2015:
One of the four bills in the package, On the Legal Status and Honouring of Fighters for Ukraine’s Independence in the Twentieth Century, covers a long list of individuals and organisations from human rights activists to guerrillas accused of ethnic cleansing. It would allow veterans of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), followers of Bandera, to receive state benefits, and rules that denial or disrespect of their role in fighting for Ukrainian independence is an unlawful “desecration of their memory”.
So much for containing the far right. And the military restructuring? That was making Nazi regiments officially part of the military. And as I have detailed before, putting a Nazi in charge. These actions in no way contain a far right movement in Ukraine that is anything but fringe.
To continue with the New York Times story:
In November, during a meeting with Times reporters near the front line, a Ukrainian press officer wore a Totenkopf variation made by a company called R3ICH (pronounced “Reich”). He said he did not believe the patch was affiliated with the Nazis. A second press officer present said other journalists had asked soldiers to remove the patch before taking photographs.
A Nazi patch made by a company called R3ICH and we are supposed to believe it is not affiliated with the Nazis? Pull the other one, New York Times, it’s got bells on. The best part about this is that they admit that journalists are asking Nazis in Ukraine to remove their patches because they’re worried about people realizing that they are Nazis. That’s some real smooth journalism.
They go on to claim that “Symbols like the flag associated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Galizien patch have become emblems of anti-Russian resistance and national pride” and “That makes it difficult to easily separate, on the basis of icons alone, the Ukrainians enraged by the Russian invasion from those who support the country’s far-right groups.” That’s because they’re the same thing. The people wearing Nazi badges are supporting the country’s far right groups. This isn’t rocket science. A person with an SS patch is in fact supporting Nazism. Just because the Swastika “was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis” doesn’t mean that there are suddenly a bunch of Hindus in Ukraine.
Nazism in Ukraine is a problem not because it plays into Russian propaganda, but because there are Nazis in Ukraine. This should not have been difficult for the New York Times to point out, but they managed to avoid it in a an article filled with pictures of Nazis. Sadly this propaganda has been highly successful as a recent Pew research poll showed 64% of the US view Ukraine positively and a UChicago-Harris/NORC poll shows 50% support arms shipments to Ukraine. The same UChicago poll showed that 30% thought Russia was still communist, showing that the new red scare propaganda is quite effective as well. It is not Russian propaganda that we should be worried about, but western propaganda that is being fed to consumers every day.
You can find a non-paywalled, archived version of the NYT article here.
Thank you for your excellent journalism! And as has been pointed out elsewhere, the NYT correctly labeled Azov and other such Ukrainian groups as Nazis, but immediately after Russia finally had to invade Ukraine, suddenly the same groups weren't Nazis. Fascinating how the NYT can just change reality by snapping its fingers, right? I wish I could do that, because I'd snap my fingers and make the corporate media disappear and erase everyone's memories that had ever existed!