A German news crew has filmed Ukrainian soldiers driving a swastika-emblazoned armored vehicle during Kiev’s counter-offensive against Russia.
The channel N-TV published a short video on Tuesday that was filmed by its journalists embedded with the Ukrainian army. The report describes the troops’ recent advances in the country’s eastern Kharkov Region, during which Kiev’s forces recaptured the city of Izium.
As the reporter interviews a Ukrainian soldier near a road, an armored vehicle drives by with what appears to be a white swastika painted on its side. Neither the reporter nor the channel explained the presence of the symbol.
This is not the first time Ukrainian troops have been spotted with Nazi and Nazi-style tattoos and insignia. The Azov Battalion, which is part of Ukraine’s National Guard, is known to have members with nationalist and neo-Nazi views among its ranks.
In May, President Vladimir Zelensky posted a now-deleted photo of a Ukrainian soldier with a patch resembling the ‘death’s head’ (Totenkopf) symbol used by Adolf Hitler’s elite SS troops.
A similar incident occurred last week when Zelensky’s office shared a photo of a presidential guard sporting a neo-Nazi patch. The image has since been removed.