KYIV, Ukraine — Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, 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. 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-

Get out your bingo cards for this one. I stopped after these five gave me an immediate win:

  • Bellingcat

  • "Ukraine is extra anti-nazi because they know what it's like to be occupied by them"

  • "But also they don't know these are nazi symbols"

  • "And pointing them out is Russian propaganda"

  • "And the idea that they're really just nazis like they say they are is nazi propaganda"

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  • ItsPequod [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    :sus-lovecraft: