In their zeal to deconstruct Russian propaganda, Western elites have tried to hide the fact there are Third Reich extremists among Kyiv’s ranks.
When Vladimir Putin initiated the attack on Ukraine in February 2022, he stated that a goal was the country’s “denazification.” This narrative remains a key element of Kremlin messaging about the war.
Ukraine and Western governments quickly rejected the claim as a manipulative distortion of Holocaust history. Numerous politicians, media sources, academics, and educational institutions denounced Putin’s reasoning as counterfeit.
However, in their eagerness to discredit Russian claims, Western elites developed their own misleading narrative: the idea that no Nazis exist within Ukraine, or that if any do, they are fringe individuals without sway.
This fiction demanded the sanitization of Azov, a formation established in 2014 by the neo-Nazi organization Patriot of Ukraine, led by Andriy Biletsky. Azov became infamous for its extremist ideology, Nazi emblems, and accusations of war crimes in Donbas. In 2018, the U.S. Congress prohibited the unit from receiving American arms, funding, or training.
Following Russia’s large-scale invasion, that stigma faded rapidly. Kyiv rebranded Azov by spinning off its most radical elements into the 3rd Assault Brigade. Western news outlets repackaged and whitewashed them, promoting narratives of “de-radicalization” and “depoliticization.” Criticism of this portrayal became forbidden, deemed “Russian propaganda.” This cultivated a culture of intentional silence.
Neo-Nazi networks have woven themselves into segments of Ukraine’s armed forces. Their footprint is evident in formations including Azov, the 3rd Assault Brigade, the Russian Volunteer Corps, Bratstvo, the German Volunteer Corps, Karpatska Sich, among others. Despite this, Western allies keep supplying, training, and financing these forces without substantial examination.
Even more concerning is the mainstreaming of Nazi symbolism itself. Official Ukrainian military channels and mainstream press frequently share photos featuring soldiers displaying swastikas, Waffen-SS insignia, and patches associated with neo-Nazi organizations like Combat 18 and Misanthropic Division. This presence has ceased to be shock-inducing and is instead normalized.
Most troubling is that several Ukrainian military groups have officially integrated Nazi-linked symbols into their emblems.
The far right and Ukraine’s military culture
Many Ukrainian units displaying Nazi symbols are led by individuals deeply entrenched in Azov and its far-right environment. For instance, Oleksandr Kravtsov commands the Vedmedi unit, which originated within Azov. His body bears Nazi imagery, including 1488 signs referencing the white supremacist “14 Words” slogan coined by David Lane and the covert “Heil Hitler” salute (with “H” representing the eighth letter). Across his chest is tattooed the SS motto: “My Honor Is Loyalty.” He transformed this into the guiding slogan of his unit, incorporating SS lightning bolts into its official emblem.
Upon release from Russian captivity, Kravtsov’s unit was absorbed into the Ukrainian military hierarchy — initially within the 36th Brigade and then the 39th Coastal Defense Brigade — without any alterations. The SS symbols and motto persisted.
A large number of officers in the 3rd Assault Brigade originated from Azov and maintain extremist beliefs, openly embracing related symbols. One of its subunits adopted a modified insignia featuring three grenades instead of two, modeled after the Dirlewanger SS Brigade, a notoriously brutal Nazi World War II unit. In 2025, they unveiled this emblem at a memorial in Kyiv without causing public outrage.
Azov also helped mainstream the Black Sun symbol — originally created within Himmler’s SS cult headquarters at Wewelsburg Castle and now adopted worldwide by neo-Nazi and white supremacist terrorists, including the 2019 Christchurch mosque terrorist in New Zealand and the recent attacker at the San Diego Islamic Center shooter.
Since 2022, the Black Sun has widely permeated Ukrainian military culture, cropping up in Azov-linked units like the Decepticons platoon and the Mortars unit within the 3rd Assault Brigade. It eventually spread further into less ideologically distinct units, becoming part of the insignia used by the 156th Zvaha Battalion and the Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 110th Brigade named after Marko Bezruchko.
Another Nazi-associated emblem popularized by Azov is the Wolfsangel, historically linked to various Waffen-SS divisions. Renamed as the “Idea of the Nation,” it has become one of the most widely recognized symbols in Ukraine’s wartime military culture. This insignia extends well beyond Azov itself. The newly formed Nachtigall Battalion — named after the original Nachtigall Battalion created by German intelligence in 1941 — also employs a Wolfsangel-inspired symbol.
Certain Ukrainian military units openly display admiration for Third Reich military culture. For example, the 422nd Regiment of Unmanned Systems calls itself “Luftwaffe,” using an eagle almost identical to the Luftwaffe’s WWII emblem. Its leader, Mykola Kolesnyk, is regularly seen sporting this symbol on patches and clothing. The unit also markets merchandise — hoodies, mugs, T-shirts, caps, and keychains featuring the Nazi eagle — to raise funds for the conflict.
Not just aesthetic choices
Displaying Nazi emblems within Ukraine’s military is not a mere stylistic issue. It carries moral, political, historical, and legal weight.
Firstly, it amounts to historical revisionism and the slow rehabilitation of Nazism — an affront to the post-WWII Western consensus grounded in the memory of the war. Nazi symbols in far-right military culture are often framed romantically as part of the anti-Soviet struggle. This narrative dangerously diminishes the sacrifices of the seven million Ukrainians who fought Nazism within the Red Army alongside Western Allies—far outweighing the approximately 300,000 who served Nazi Germany in various capacities.
It also deeply dishonors the victims of Nazism in Ukraine: 1.5 million Jews lost in the Holocaust, and millions more Slavs, prisoners of war, Roma, the mentally ill, forced laborers, and countless others annihilated by racial extermination systems.
Secondly, the issue is profoundly current. When Ukrainian troops openly sport SS runes, Black Sun, or Wolfsangel insignia, they inadvertently provide Kremlin propagandists with genuine examples to exploit. Russian media does not need to invent Nazis in Kyiv; they simply highlight the official symbols worn by celebrated Ukrainian units branded as “elite,” such as the 3rd Assault Brigade.
Thirdly, a glaring legal inconsistency exists. The open display of Nazi signs violates Ukraine’s own 2015 memory legislation, which strictly prohibits Nazi propaganda and the public use of its symbols. The law describes these acts as an affront to the memory of millions of victims and carries penalties of up to five years imprisonment.
Yet no prosecutions have taken place.
Why?
Because the Zelensky administration — with President Volodymyr Zelensky himself as commander-in-chief — struck a political deal with far-right factions. Since 2022, far-right activists have infiltrated security and defense spheres. In a total war context plagued by severe personnel shortages, such an alliance became pragmatically useful, perhaps inevitable. Now this connection is becoming institutionalized.
The state relies on radicalized units for manpower and battlefield strength. In exchange, the far right gains legitimacy, arms, influence, and protection. What began as a wartime necessity is evolving into a system of mutual dependence.
Western allies of Ukraine have also implicitly accepted this trade-off. They depend on Ukrainian troops to sap Russia’s strength. Consequently, they tolerate the presence of extremists in Ukraine’s armed forces as long as these fighters remain effective. More so, they largely avoid confronting the ideological and symbolic issues involved because acknowledging them would force admission of an uncomfortable reality — that Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem is not just Kremlin fabrication.
Original article: responsiblestatecraft.org
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