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Journalists Are Asking Ukrainian Soldiers to Hide Their Nazi Patches, NYT Admits

The New York Times has been forced to very, very belatedly deal with something which had long been obvious and known to many independent analysts and media outlets, but which has been carefully shielded from the mainstream masses in the West for obvious reasons.

The surprising Monday Times headline said that “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History.” This acknowledgement comes after literally years of primarily indy journalists and geopolitical commentators pointing out that yes indeed… Ukraine’s military and paramilitary groups, especially those operating in the east since at least 2014, have a serious Nazi ideology problem.

This has been exhaustively documented, again, going back years. But the report, which merely tries to downplay it as a “thorny issue” of Ukraine’s “unique” “History” – suggests that the real problem for Western PR is fundamentally that it’s being displayed so openly. Ukrainian troops are being asked to cover those Nazi symbols please!–as Matt Taibbi sarcastically quipped in commenting on the report.

The authors of the NYT report begin by expressing frustration over the optics of Nazi symbols being displayed so proudly on many Ukrainian soldiers’ uniforms. Suggesting that many journalistic photographs which have in some cases been featured in newspapers and media outlets worldwide (typically coupled with generally positive articles on Ukraine’s military) are merely ‘unfortunate’ or misleading, the NYT report says, “In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.”

The report admits this has led to controversy wherein news rooms actually must delete some photos of Ukrainian soldiers and militants. “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,” continues the report.

So it’s merely “thorny” and “complicated” we are told. Below is a small sampling of the kinds of patches that appear on Ukrainian military uniforms with “some regularity” – in the words of The New York Times:

NATO itself has in the recent past been forced to delete images on its official social media accounts due to Nazi imagery being present among Ukrainian troops during photo shoots.

The following line from the report says everything you need to know about the so-called “paper of record” and its one-sided and ultra-simplistic coverage of what many are finally waking up to realize is a war with a deeply complex reality (to say the least), and far from the MSM’s goodies vs. baddies Hollywoodesque narrative of Putler vs. the free world which is typical of networks from CNN to Fox to NBC…

From the NY Times:

“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.”

Oops!

And now we might expect some significant efforts at damage control, or even perhaps we’re witnessing the beginnings of evolving definitions and the moving of goalposts. More from NY Times [emphasis ZH]:

But some members of these groups have been fighting Russia since the Kremlin illegally annexed part of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014 and are now part of the broader military structure. Some are regarded as national heroes, even as the far-right remains marginalized politically.

The iconography of these groups, 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.

Some are writing more appropriate and apt headlines for the NYT story…

Only very recently Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and even President Zelensky’s office was caught in the act:

In April, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted a photograph on its Twitter account of a soldier wearing a patch featuring a skull and crossbones known as the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head. The specific symbol in the picture was made notorious by a Nazi unit that committed war crimes and guarded concentration camps during World War II.

The patch in the photograph sets the Totenkopf atop a Ukrainian flag with a small No. 6 below. That patch is the official merchandise of Death in June, a British neo-folk band that the Southern Poverty Law Center has said produces “hate speech” that “exploits themes and images of fascism and Nazism.”

To be expected, the Times still tries to run cover while desperately seeking to ‘reassure’ its audience by writing that “In the short term, that threatens to reinforce Putin’s propaganda and giving fuel to his false claims that Ukraine must be ‘de-Nazified’ — a position that ignores the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.”

New levels of cope indeed…

But then still, the NYT concedes awkwardly, “More broadly, Ukraine’s ambivalence about these symbols, and sometimes even its acceptance of them, risks giving new, mainstream life to icons that the West has spent more than a half-century trying to eliminate.”

READ 25 COMMENTS
  • Cleric TWC says:

    We are talking about symbols and their various meaning. For instance even the symbol of the cross conveys many messages…some of love and forgiveness…some of death and hatred. So, it foolish to debate the meaning of a symbol.

  • ADOLF BIDEN says:

    And the head Nazi is Adolf Biden Hitler
    Like I’ve said 1000x in the last 2 years whatever Democrats acuse Trump of doing or being is exactly what they are doing and being. Remember they claim Trump was another Adolf Hitler. Well low and behold the real Hitler wannabe is no other than Genocide Joe Biden the biggest liar treasonist traitor and complete Psychopath the world has ever witnessed. This Traitor needs a bullet to the head NOW!!! FUCK YOU BIDEN YOU WILL DIE!!! NOT SOON ENOUGH
    AMERICANS ARE SICK OF YOUR LIES AND DESTRUCTION OF OUR COUNTRY WITH YOUR CHINESE BLANK CHECKS YOU FUCKIN TRAITOR BASTERD EVIL PEDOPHILE SICK FUCKIN ASSHOLE BIGGEST PIECE OF SHIT THE WORLD HAS EVER DEALT WITH. DEATH TO ALL YOU BIDEN’S. AMERICAN REVOLUTION IS MOMENTS AWAY!!! RISE UP PEOPLE THIS EVIL ROTTEN TRAITOR NEEDS TO BE SENT BACK TO HELL WHERE HE ESCAPED FROM.
    DROP FUCKIN DEAD TRAITOR JOE ASSHOLE GENOCIDAL LUNATIC BIDEN!!
    GOD HOW I HATE YOUR SATANIC ASS.

  • Biden SucksDiaperJuice says:

    The “Main” Stream Media is trying to cover up its support for Nazism but Lefties are the biggest fascist dopes in the world.

  • k says:

    Looks like Ukraine will be “MILKING” even more money from America…

    Collapse of Major Dam in Ukraine Triggers Emergency as Moscow and Kyiv Trade Blame

    A major dam in southern Ukraine collapsed Tuesday, triggering floods, endangering crops in the country’s breadbasket and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war scrambled to evacuate residents and blamed each other for the destruction.

    Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River in an area that Moscow has controlled for over a year, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian bombardment in the contested area. It was not possible to verify the claims.

    The consequences quickly became clear as homes, streets and businesses flooded downstream and emergency crews began evacuations; officials monitored water for cooling systems at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant; and authorities expressed concern about supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea.

    Both Russian and Ukrainian authorities brought in trains and buses for residents. About 22,000 people live in areas at risk of flooding in Russian-controlled areas, while 16,000 live in the most critical zone in Ukrainian-held territory, according to official tallies. Neither side reported any deaths or injuries.

    https://www.cf.org/news/collapse-of-major-dam-in-ukraine-triggers-emergency-as-moscow-and-kyiv-trade-blame/

  • Richard Mundy says:

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.”
    So what out of Russia came Marxism Karl Marx was a Jew and he alone wrote the Marxist manifestos which seem to be playing in America today just look at this Administration it speaks for itself.

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