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© Reuters/Alexandros AvramidisA man holds a sign during a ceremony commemorating the 69th anniversary of the end of World War II at an Allied Forces cemetery in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, May 9, 2014.
A German television station Monday night showed video of Ukrainian volunteer soldiers with Nazi symbols, which are outlawed in Germany, on their helmets. One soldier was seen with a Nazi swastika on his helmet and another had the distinctive lightning bolt-like runic symbol of the SS, which carried out the Holocaust and many other atrocities under Hitler.

The soldiers depicted are reportedly part of the Azov battalion, a volunteer force with a strong nationalist base. Oysten Bogen, a correspondent for Norway's TV2, which shot the piece, said he asked a spokesman if there were any fascist elements in the volunteer forces just prior to taping the men and the spokesman replied: "Absolutely not, we are just Ukrainian nationalists."

Pro-government Russian media repeatedly have focused on Ukraine's far right nationalism as a means of discrediting President Petro Poroshenko's pro-European government and European integration supporters, known as the Euromaidan movement. Many ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine have cited what they call Kiev's Nazism as a reason to take up arms and fight to break from Ukraine.

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See a full list of Ukraine's volunteer battalions here.

The Azov battalion is one of the more prominent volunteer units fighting separatist rebels in the east. It was founded by the Social-National Assembly, an alliance of far right and nationalist parties. Many Azov battalion members are openly nationalist and have been accused of being neo-Nazi, but most deny their ideology is fascist. The Azov battalion flag prominently displays a symbol resembling the Wolfsangel, or Wolf's Hook, a prominent symbol within Nazism.


Comment: They look like Nazis, behave like Nazis, but they claim they aren't Nazis. And these bandits are funded and put in power by a U.S. orchestrated coup in Kiev.

MSM agrees! U.S. aids and arms extremist terrorist groups in Syria and Ukraine
Regarding the formation by the Interior Ministry in Kiev of a battalion of Nazis - the Azov Battalion - the BBC would publish, "Ukraine conflict: 'White power' warrior from Sweden," the Telegraph would publish, "Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists," and Al Jazeera would publish, "Driven by far-right ideology, Azov Battalion mans Ukraine's front line." Each would in turn, admit that literal Nazis are fighting on behalf of the NATO-backed regime in Kiev - with the regime itself raising ultra-right, Neo-Nazi battle formations. But each would also attempt to downplay the implications and role of Nazism within the ongoing conflict.