MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian authorities have vehemently denied that Ukraine’s armed forces have slightest correlation with neo-fascists. However, open use of Neo-Nazi symbolism in their crusade against militia forces and civil population of eastern Ukraine explicitly suggests otherwise.
The country’s special unit for protection of public order - the Azov Battalion, often referred to as the “Men in Black” – is subordinate to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The emblem of the unit is the Wolfsangel symbol (or wolf-hook) on the background of the Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) – though of an ancient origin, both were used in Nazi symbolism.
Wolfsangel, though supposed to be a stylized representation of a kind of iron hook historically used as a wolf trap, was also the emblem of the occultist Thule Society which contributed to development of the Nazi ideology.
Azov’s emblem also matches the symbol of the Waffen-SS 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.
Waffen-SS was found guilty of war crimes in the Nuremberg tribunal, with Das Reich - of Oradour-sur-Giane and Tulle massacres.
One of the Azov Battalion’s official military arm patches has the inscription The Black Corps, which in German stands for Das Schwarze Korpus.
Das Schwarze Korpus was the official newspaper of the SS (Schultzstaffel).
The evident similarities were immediately noticed by the Daily Agenda news alliance and the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Nazi symbols are now official in #Ukraine and endorsed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Azov Battalion #A30B... pic.twitter.com/2bv7ns0uYF
— Daily Agenda (@NewsAlliance) August 10, 2014
The Telelgraph’s Tom Parfitt admitted that “the western-backed government in Kiev is throwing militia groups – some openly neo-Nazi - into the front of the battle”.
“The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites,” he wrote in his article entitled “Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists”.
Earlier this year Kiev saw a torchlight rally, similar to that in Berlin in 1933 when 25,000 Nazi troops marched through the city to cheer Adolf Hitler, the then newly appointed Chancellor of Germany.