One of the largest fictions of the Western press after the Russian Federation launched their Special Military Operation in February 2022 is that claims of Nazis in Ukraine are exaggerated by the Russian Federation.
Screenshots of Washington Post, Politico, NPR, and MSNBC headlines
Modern Hitler Youth Camps
In typical Western fashion, the mainstream press has been aware of this issue, covering these camps years prior to the Special Military Operation.
In the two videos above you will see children being taught how to use rifles, lectured about the history of Ukraine from the perspective of supporters of Stefan Bandera. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is also prominent, as well are calls to destroy Russian civilization.
The Associated Press observed this nationalist rhetoric in the reporting they did on these camps in 2018. Some of the lecturers at the camps gave a glimpse into the types of topics these children are being taught.
Cherkashin is a veteran of the fight against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine; he was wounded in combat and later came to lead Sokil, or Falcon, the youth wing of the Svoboda party. It is important, he says, to inculcate the nation's youth with nationalist thought, so they can battle Vladimir Putin's Russia as well as "challenges that could completely destroy" European civilization.
Among those challenges: LGBT rights, which lecturers denounce as a sign of Western decade
"You need to be aware of all that," said instructor Ruslan Andreiko. "All those gender things, all those perversions of modern Bolsheviks who have come to power in Europe and now try to make all those LGBT things like gay pride parades part of the education system."
While some youths dozed off during lectures, others paid attention. Clearly, some were receptive.
During a break in training, a teenager played a nationalist march on his guitar. It was decorated with a sticker showing white bombs hitting a mosque, under the motto,
"White Europe is Our Goal."
Nationalist Symbols
An unusual attempt to downplay the influence of Nazi symbology has been invoked during the current conflict raging in Eastern Ukraine. On social media, supporters of Ukraine have defended the use of these symbols under the guise of them being different than the ones used in Nazi Germany. Of course, this can easily be disproven.
We can take the Azov Battalion symbol and analyze it carefully.
The United Nations has published a few studies already, indicating the scale of atrocities against those in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
During the on-going conflict, Ukraine has been observed several times committing atrocities against prisoners of war. We must warn our readers that the video below is incredibly graphic.
Shortly after the video was posted, Ukraine supporters took to the internet to claim the video was another example of Russian propaganda.
The Human Rights Watch organization also chimed in, indicating that it would be a war crime if the video turned out to be real. The New York Times eventually admitted the video was real.
A common scene on social media are pro-Ukraine supporters taking pleasure in the brutality of war. The barbarism on display is illustrated by a verified Twitter user with over 200,000 followers gleefully bragging about turning bad "ordinary Russian" into a good one (Dead one).
Stop Pretending
The attempts to downplay the Nazism in Ukraine is irresponsible and will cause unneeded death and destruction as nationalists are allowed to go unchecked.
One of the reasons we at Red Street use Western sources is to refute attempts to frame our work as Russian propaganda. This strategic method of reporting is to help our readers to think about how narratives shift according to geopolitical interests.
Yet people don't seem to care. To most Westerners the world is their soap opera and a change in narrative is like a new season of their show has begun. They are happy so long as they are told that the 'good guys' (West) remain victorious, righteous and rich.