- The Russia-backed Donetsk People's Republic rewarded one of its fighters for killing Ukrainian "nationalists."
- Footage shows the fighter wearing neo-Nazi symbols while receiving his medal.
- Moscow has tried to justify the invasion of Ukraine by claiming the country is run by "Nazis."
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Re: Foreign Affairs article seems to be saying that Russia is headed towards full on fascism
abraham Weizfeld PhD
Excusez-moi, the Romani people are being hunted in Ukraine right now. It is just no heard about. As for the Ukrainian Jewish population, there is not much left now.
From: marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> On Behalf Of David Walters
Sent: Tuesday, June 6, 2023 10:34 AM To: marxmail@groups.io Subject: Re: [marxmail] Foreign Affairs article seems to be saying that Russia is headed towards full on fascism
Vladimiro...you think symbology defines the political parameters of a state? It is a bizarre and totally un-materialist way of looking at stuff. I look at class relations and who rules the state and how they do it; their relationship to the classes, etc etc. And, sadly, you fail to apply any of this to the Russian state, obviously far more repressive than the Ukrainian state which you inaccurately, and basically emotionally, define as a "fascist/Nazi state". Do tell when the concentration camps are being built up to round up the Jews and Roma begin. Fascism has a concrete expression that involves the elimination of all liberal bourgeois politics and institutions. I have investigated the revival of the most "popular" of Nazi history in Ukraine, Stephan Bandera. Not him, but the revival of his person as a national hero in Ukraine. It seems most Ukrainians are not aware or don't care about his role as a Nazi collaborator. Don't misunderstand, Ukrainian Jews don't like this one bit for the obvious historical reasons. Yet not a single instance of the ceremonies were marked by expressions of antisemitism or calls for Fascism. Don't you find that odd if everyone in Ukraine, as you imply, loves Nazis? The Ukrainian peoples love of this guy has zero, it seems, to do with Bandera being a Nazi. It has everything, it seems, to do with him having fought the Red Army and is seen as THE defender of Ukraine's sovereignty. It was his anti-Russian/anti-Communism that has driven Ukrainians to accept him...as gross as it is for you and me. But it doesn't define the state, whatsoever. Is is why by and large, most Ukrainians who have accepted Bandera as a "National Hero" have rejected totally any party that actually stands for what Bandera or his OUN-B organization advocated. |
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Marx in the Anthropocene loses his historical materialism
Mark Baugher
I read Saito Kohei's recently-published book on "degrowth communism." Degrowth is something I expect to support once I figure out what it is.
Marx in the Anthropocene is dense in its treatment of a philosophical debate between competing ecosocialist camps and some non ecosocialist ones. Using a wealth of material from the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, he mines Marx's writings and provides a differential analysis of the changes Marx introduced in subsequent versions of Capital during the last 15 years of his life. He studies the evolution of Marx's thought during that time. Saito delineates Marx's evolution of thought into roughly three periods, a younger, Promethean Marx prior to the 1860s, a metabolism-aware Marx of Capital, and a Marx who became a degrowth communist in the final years of his life. Saito is a professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo. I did not understand many of the distinctions he makes in comparing monism, dualism, and Marx's "methodological dualism." As early as the 1840's, however, in The German Ideology, Marx wrote that "Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature" [Marx, Karl; Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach (Great Books in Philosophy) (p. 37)]. Prometheus Books]. I still don't get how Marx's formulation that "humans as part of nature" would not be considered "monism" or what is so wrong with monism that some "hybrid methodology" is needed. There are some helpful reviews of Marx in the Anthropocene such as https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/20858_marx-in-the-anthropocene-towards-the-idea-of-degrowth-communism-by-kohei-saito-reviewed-by-tim-christiaens/#:~:text=Marx%20in%20the%20Anthropocene%20provides,unites%20environmentalist%20and%20socialist%20concerns and https://spectrejournal.com/marxism-for-the-age-of-climate-emergency/ But these reviews don't mention the most striking and most controversial claim in the Book: "Marx must have completely parted ways with ‘historical materialism’ as it has traditionally been understood." [Saito, Kohei. Marx in the Anthropocene (p. 182). Cambridge University Press]. The HM that Marx supposedly abandoned was expressed in his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: "At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or -- this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms -- with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure." Saito's Marx-mining is intended to show that Marx did not support this formulation ten years later in Capital, where he did not treat productive forces as an "independent variable." The Marx on 1859 was a productivist Promethean whereas the Marx of 1868 was concerned with human ecological metabolism. Matt Huber pounced on this and provides a mini-review on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthuber78/status/1632505118334541824. It's a war of quotations among Marx scholars. It is no surprise that Huber would attack the novelty of Saito's take on Marx's historical materialism since Saito's degrowth is antithetical to Huber's "productivist" outlook. Marx in the Anthropocene finds that Lukács has an acceptable definition of historical materialism: "This historical interrelation and entanglement in the process of metabolism is the fundamental insight of Lukács’s ‘historical materialism’. Historical materialism makes it clear that there is a fundamental unity in the natural, ecological process of metabolic interchange between humans and nature (‘materialism’), whose actual processes and appearances are, however, always already socio-historically mediated and evolve accordingly (historical)" [Saito, Kohei. Marx in the Anthropocene (p. 90). Cambridge University Press]. How Lukács got it right when his teacher Marx did not is a puzzle to me. Like the works of Foster and Burkett that preceded Marx in the Anthropocene, Saito plumbs Marx's unpublished works, compares these with his published works, and provides a Marx who is relevant to the ecological crisis that capitalism has brought upon the earth's species. In my view, the evolution of Marx's thought during his lifetime is important to applying his ideas in a time of massive ecological deterioration that will affect practically all species on the planet. Mark |
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Re: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
Dennis Brasky
What a demagogic and false outburst this is! The Ukrainian leader is "heroic" to whom? Even US imperialism and NATO are acceptable - again - to whom? I am a regular reader of this blog and I have seen NO evidence of this crap! Dennis Brasky On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 10:01 AM Marla Vijaya kumar via groups.io <marlavk=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:
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Re: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
Marla Vijaya kumar
Any damn thing that Ulkraine and Zelly does is heroic for some people here. The evilest people in the whole of history are the Russians. Even US imperialism and NATO are acceptable, but not the Russian people. Such a wonderful frame of mind!!! Vijaya Kumar Marla
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 09:34:40 PM GMT+5:30, Paul F via groups.io <trusscott.foundation@...> wrote:
Or, to paraphrase a certain US President, 'They may be Nazis but they are our Nazis.'
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Re: A Discussion with Eyewitnesses: People's War in Ukraine
lawatwork7@...
https://www.okde.org/en/uncategorized-en/ukraine-one-year-since-the-russian-invasion-the-war-escalates-dangerously/?fbclid=IwAR1Ou3BLp3Nc19mAU-cx_2r4Gh1phzUNE99IOd28i8CWSZ3ORgskYTQGstc
Ukraine: One year since the Russian invasion, the war escalates dangerouslyby Panayiotis Tselepis - Translation of the article published in “Spartakos” issue number 138 (May 2023), political journal of the Organization of Communists Internationalist of Greece – “Spartakos”, Greek section of the 4th International |
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Book review: Ukraine and the empire of capital (Green Left)
Chris Slee
Ukraine and the Empire of Capital, by Yuliya Yurchenko, reviewed by Chris Slee
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Basic Income: A Critique of the Social-Reformist Left's Assumptions and Analysis: Part One
Frederick Harris
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Re: NYTimes.com: There Is One Group the Roberts Court Really Doesn’t Like
Jim Farmelant
Here is a link that everyone can read: Jim Farmelant Learn or Review Basic Math On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 8:12 PM Dennis Brasky <dmozart1756@...> wrote:
--
Jim Farmelant Learn or Review Basic Math
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NYTimes.com: There Is One Group the Roberts Court Really Doesn’t Like
Dennis Brasky
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Re: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
Or, to paraphrase a certain US President, 'They may be Nazis but they are our Nazis.'
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Re: Foreign Affairs article seems to be saying that Russia is headed towards full on fascism
David Walters
Vladimiro...you think symbology defines the political parameters of a state? It is a bizarre and totally un-materialist way of looking at stuff. I look at class relations and who rules the state and how they do it; their relationship to the classes, etc etc. And, sadly, you fail to apply any of this to the Russian state, obviously far more repressive than the Ukrainian state which you inaccurately, and basically emotionally, define as a "fascist/Nazi state". Do tell when the concentration camps are being built up to round up the Jews and Roma begin. Fascism has a concrete expression that involves the elimination of all liberal bourgeois politics and institutions. I have investigated the revival of the most "popular" of Nazi history in Ukraine, Stephan Bandera. Not him, but the revival of his person as a national hero in Ukraine. It seems most Ukrainians are not aware or don't care about his role as a Nazi collaborator. Don't misunderstand, Ukrainian Jews don't like this one bit for the obvious historical reasons. Yet not a single instance of the ceremonies were marked by expressions of antisemitism or calls for Fascism. Don't you find that odd if everyone in Ukraine, as you imply, loves Nazis? The Ukrainian peoples love of this guy has zero, it seems, to do with Bandera being a Nazi. It has everything, it seems, to do with him having fought the Red Army and is seen as THE defender of Ukraine's sovereignty. It was his anti-Russian/anti-Communism that has driven Ukrainians to accept him...as gross as it is for you and me. But it doesn't define the state, whatsoever. Is is why by and large, most Ukrainians who have accepted Bandera as a "National Hero" have rejected totally any party that actually stands for what Bandera or his OUN-B organization advocated. |
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Re: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
David Walters
I never implied the now-disbanded Azov "Battalion" were not neo-Nazi. (since incorporated into the AFU and now called, what's left of it, as the "Azov Regiment".) The same is true or the obvious photos of many full on Nazi symbols tattooed on Russian fighters or their wearing of Nazi regalia on their uniforms. Why would you think Zelensky is a "great man and hero"? I don't. But you haven't, at all, analyzed the disgusting (for us) revival of those Nazi symbols in Ukraine (or Russia, which you seem in denial about) and the naming of streets after famous Nazi collaborators. I've already answered this in several previous posts, you have yet to even comment on it. It is irrelevant to the context of the war itself. What do this symbols mean within the context of the war? Are these ultra-nationalists fighting to set up a Fascist National State? A Nazi state with the military crushing of the working class? To be a Nazi you have to hate Jews yet we *still* see Jews in Ukraine signing up to fight for their country. We see Ukrainians of Jewish background fleeing the Russians. Again, Vlad, what does it mean that fighters on both sides of this conflict look to Nazi regalia to identify with?
David |
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A Discussion with Eyewitnesses: People's War in Ukraine
Richard Fidler
Suzi Weissman interviews Vladislav Starodubtsev & Jeremy Bigwood
SUZI WEISSMAN conducted this interview for broadcast on her program “Beneath the Surface” on Jacobin Radio, March 9, 2023. It has been edited and abridged for publication here.
https://againstthecurrent.org/atc224/a-discussion-with-eyewitnesses-peoples-war-in-ukraine/
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Another set of Trumpy thoughts . . .
Mark Lause
The Department of Justice has been dragging its feet on investigating him before, during, and since his presidency. Indeed, I doubt they'd have opened an investigation at all had the Congress and the media not already been doing so. And I don't know if they had done so if Trump himself wasn't quite upfront about his lawbreaking--doing it in front of cameras or a microphone. In the end, nobody in DoJ really wants to indict a president, if only because, once they'd do so, subsequent presidents would tend to mistrust them. At the same time, Trump's conduct leaves them no choice, because theirs trainloads of people who are doing time or have done time for mishandling classified information. Imagine the tsunami of lawsuits from them if the same criminal activities. For this reason, I half expected a plea deal to come out of the meeting of Trump's lawyers and the DoJ over the stolen documents. It would have had to have involved a guilty plea--that is, Trump's acknowledgement of wrongdoing and a repudiation of his criminal activities. That would require someone with enough brains to There really is a serious and deep crisis in ruling class politics. Too bad we're not in much of a position to do anything about it. Or can we do something?
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Finding answers for Syria's disappeared
Dennis Brasky
On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 7:50 AM Yasmen Almashan via The Syria Campaign <info@...> wrote:
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56 years after the 1967 War, the world still denies the Palestinian experience
Dennis Brasky
As the son of a general who participated in the Nakba in 1948 and the Naksa in 1967, Miko Peled thought he knew Israeli history. But when he finally met Palestinians and heard their stories of Zionist atrocities he was shocked to learn the truth. |
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An Example of Oppression by the Social-Democratic Left
Frederick Harris
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Re: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
Vladimiro Giacche'
Nice try.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I’m pretty sure that the swastika tattooed on the body of so many Azovites and the likes is viewed by them as an ancient Indian symbol… and that the Galicia Division emblem proudly worn by so many other Ukrainian soldiers has nothing to do with the emblem of the SS Division which by chance had the same name. David, the symbol itself of the Azov Batallion IS a Nazi symbol. Make peace with facts please! We can dispute on many matters. We can think that Putin’s war is an unprovoked aggression, that Zelensky is a great statesman and a hero , etc etc etc . But on the revival of Nazi mythologies in Ukraine since 2014 (a matter of fact that also our press widely accepted before February 2022) and on their political use we should agree. Unless we prefer finding Nazis everywhere , except where they actually are… VG Inviato da iPhone Il giorno 6 giu 2023, alle ore 04:57, David Walters <david.walters66@...> ha scritto:
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Re: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
David Walters
I think one of the people interviewed noted that one should look at these symbols by asking how Ukrainians view them? In the article this link is here, which shows how Russian fighters in Donbas wear the same icons of Fascism: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fighter-neo-nazi-symbols-medal-kill-ukraine-nationalist-2022-4 A soldier wearing Nazi imagery was given a medal by a Russia-backed separatist republic for killing Ukrainian 'nationalists'The head of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic in Ukraine has been seen in a video awarding a medal to a fighter for helping to kill "more than 250 nationalists." Published on April 3 through the Russia-backed republic's website, the footage also shows the fighter wearing symbols used by neo-Nazis on his sleeve. According to the site, the video shows DPR leader Denis Pushilin saluting and shaking hands with Senior Lieutenant Roman Vorobyov of the "Somalia" motorized rifle battalion during a visit to Mariupol. He then pins the commendation — called the "St George Cross II" by an accompanying report — on Vorobyov. Two patches can be seen on Vorobyov's right arm. One depicts the "Totenkopf," or "death's head" — a skull-and-crossbones image recognized as a neo-Nazi and white supremacist symbol by the Anti-Defamation League. It was originally used by a Nazi German SS branch that guarded concentration camps and was later incorporated into the Third SS Panzer Division during World War II. Vorobyov also wore a patch bearing the "Valknot," an ancient Norse symbol associated with the god Odin, per the ADL. The Valknot has also been appropriated by white supremacists, the league says. The video's accompanying report said that Vorobyov and his battalion had eliminated "45 units of military equipment and more than 250 nationalists" while fighting alongside Russian forces. A version of the video posted on Pushilin's official website did not show Vorobyov receiving his medal. It is not immediately clear why that portion of the video was removed. In justifying the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the country is run by "Nazis" and that Russia's campaign aims to "denazify" the region. Moscow has also recognized the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk — where the DPR is located — as independent republics and said it aims to "liberate" the areas. While Ukraine has a neo-Nazi presence among some of its fighters, such as the ultranationalist Azov Battalion, experts say Putin's claims are a mischaracterization of the country and factually wrong. Ukraine's democratically-elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is a Jewish man with several family members who perished in the Holocaust.
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Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NY Times)
Jim Farmelant
I'm suprised that nobody has commented on this article yet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/world/europe/nazi-symbols-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=PDO_20zXKHUqFKQZGk3p-P-HJqL7AkhV_wrRVelqQzB6VaHLU0hqWn9C3EQOjPsNsfzU82L7775d7EjsY95adFDNnnbnJ8PrML1aMBkuf9ZyV0Y7IGUDlDc94tv2cXXyMZ1g6WiN05BHC1vLuidyV_fDTw0JHY0WrtpxsDg7MhACdC7bvvCwx5FpT5QGUqSUUlMf1BruW1DJefmuVFvb7YhAoLsPGiicTgG0tdbNh8oZ2rkHYuyhr6o9tooR_uh34fwUCKoZE4NT7k_YOrutR5Qm6tOQ9t3mYl5EunJ2ZxL_7XEA6iSVrjpW6J_kA--KrqBnc_NA_WgJKnocan6eIPwh&smid=url-share Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of HistoryTroops’ use of patches bearing Nazi emblems risks fueling Russian propaganda and spreading imagery that the West has spent a half-century trying to eliminate.
KYIV, Ukraine — 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. 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 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. 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. 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. In the short term, that threatens to reinforce Mr. Putin’s propaganda and giving fuel to his false claims that Ukraine must be “de-Nazified” — a position that ignores the fact that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish. 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. “What worries me, in the Ukrainian context, is that people in Ukraine who are in leadership positions, either they don’t or they’re not willing to acknowledge and understand how these symbols are viewed outside of Ukraine,” said Michael Colborne, a researcher at the investigative group Bellingcat who studies the international far right. “I think Ukrainians need to increasingly realize that these images undermine support for the country.” In a statement, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that, as a country that suffered greatly under German occupation, “We emphasize that Ukraine categorically condemns any manifestations of Nazism.” Even Jewish groups and anti-hate organizations that have traditionally called out hateful symbols have stayed largely silent. Privately, some leaders have worried about being seen as embracing Russian propaganda talking points. Questions over how to interpret such symbols are as divisive as they are persistent, and not just in Ukraine. In the American South, some have insisted that today, the Confederate flag symbolizes pride, not its history of racism and secession. The swastika was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis. 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.” “The image, while offensive, is that of a musical band,” Mr. Hyman said. The band now uses the photograph posted by the Ukrainian military to market the Totenkopf patch. The New York Times asked the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on April 27 about the tweet. Several hours later, the post was deleted. “After studying this case, we came to the conclusion that this logo can be interpreted ambiguously,” the ministry said in a statement. The soldier in the photograph was part of a volunteer unit called the Da Vinci Wolves, which started as part of the paramilitary wing of Ukraine’s Right Sector, a coalition of right-wing organizations and political parties that militarized after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. At least five other photographs on the Wolves’ Instagram and Facebook pages feature their soldiers wearing Nazi-style patches, including the Totenkopf. NATO militaries, an alliance that Ukraine hopes to join, do not tolerate such patches. When such symbols have appeared, groups like the Anti-Defamation League have spoken out, and military leaders have reacted swiftly. Last month, Ukraine’s state emergency services agency posted on Instagram a photograph of an emergency worker wearing a Black Sun symbol, also known as a Sonnenrad, that appeared in the castle of Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi general and SS director. The Black Sun is popular among neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
In March 2022, NATO’s Twitter account posted a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier wearing a similar patch.
Both photographs were quickly removed. 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. Ihor Kozlovskyi, a Ukrainian historian and religious scholar, said that the symbols had meanings that were unique to Ukraine and should be interpreted by how Ukrainians viewed them, not by how they had been used elsewhere. “The symbol can live in any community or any history independently of how it is used in other parts of Earth,” Mr. Kozlovskyi said. Russian soldiers in Ukraine have also been seen wearing Nazi-style patches, underscoring how complicated interpreting these symbols can be in a region steeped in Soviet and German history. The Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939, so it was caught by surprise two years later when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had suffered greatly under a Soviet government that engineered a famine that killed millions. Many Ukrainians initially viewed the Nazis as liberators.
Factions from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its insurgent army fought alongside the Nazis in what they viewed as a struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty. Members of those groups also took part in atrocities against Jewish and Polish civilians. Later in the war, though, some of the groups fought against the Nazis. Some Ukrainians joined Nazi military units like the Waffen-SS Galizien. The emblem of the group, which was led by German officers, was a sky-blue patch showing a lion and three crowns. The unit took part in a massacre of hundreds of Polish civilians in 1944. In December, after a yearslong legal battle, Ukraine’s highest court ruled that a government-funded research institute could continue to list the unit’s insignia as excluded from the Nazi symbols banned under a 2015 law.
Today, as a new generation fights against Russian occupation, many Ukrainians see the war as a continuation of the struggle for independence during and immediately after World War II. Symbols like the flag associated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Galizien patch have become emblems of anti-Russian resistance and national pride. 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.
Units like the Da Vinci Wolves, the better-known Azov regiment and others that began with far-right members have been folded into the Ukrainian military, and have been instrumental in defending Ukraine from Russian troops. The Azov regiment was celebrated after holding out during the siege of the southern city of Mariupol last year. After the commander of the Da Vinci Wolves was killed in March, he received a hero’s funeral, which Mr. Zelensky attended. “I think some of these far-right units mix a fair bit of their own mythmaking into the public discourse on them,” said Mr. Colborne, the researcher. “But I think the least that can and should be done everywhere, not just Ukraine, is not allowing the far right’s symbols, rhetoric and ideas to seep into public discourse.” Kitty Bennett and Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman.
Learn or Review Basic Math
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