The “silent tolerance” is explained by geopolitical considerations, Slovakia’s Robert Fico has said
People eager to condemn the atrocities committed by the Third Reich are at the same time turning a blind eye to Ukrainian troops wearing Nazi symbols today, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has lamented.
The head of the country’s government visited the holocaust museum located at the site of the former concentration camp Sered on Monday in what is now western Slovakia. In a speech, he highlighted the need to educate new generations about the crimes committed by Nazis during World War II before bringing up the Ukraine conflict.
“We all talk about fascism, Nazism, while silently tolerating units moving across Ukraine that have a very clear label and are connected to movements that we consider dangerous and forbidden today. Since it is a geopolitical fight, nobody cares,” Fico said.
“I want to pay tribute to the victims, not with pathetic speech, but I want to call for action,” he added. “The international community should recognize that troops using Nazi insignia, who often appear to act as such, cannot fight in Ukraine.”
Kiev has embraced as heroes Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazi Germany. The symbology and ideology of the Third Reich have been popular among right-wing forces there for decades. The Azov battalion is infamous for its open embrace of bigotry and white supremacism, although its successor unit claims to have mostly eradicated such people from its ranks.
Ukrainian troops have repeatedly been filmed using Nazi iconography on their uniforms and weapons, including during the ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region. In a widely publicized incident, two Ukrainian soldiers filmed themselves imitating invading Wehrmacht troops while harassing an elderly Russian civilian. The man went missing after the encounter.
There is some continuity in Ukrainian nationalism, as thousands of Nazi collaborators made their way to Western nations, such as Canada, when the Axis powers were defeated on the battlefield. Some of them were later used by the CIA in attempts to destabilize the USSR during the Cold War.
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Just last week, Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa expressed reservations against releasing the list of some 900 alleged Nazi criminals who fled to the country after the war. Making the names public may embarrass the country’s Ukrainian community, officials told the media.
The Slovakian prime minister is a vocal critic of Western support for Kiev against Moscow. The Ukrainian Nazi link is one of the reasons he has cited in explaining his position.
