Pro-Russian Fighter With Nazi Patches Gets Medal for Killing 'Nazis'
BRENDAN COLE ON 4/5/22 AT 10:38 AM EDTThe claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking the "denazification" of Ukraine clashed with reality after video showed a pro-Russian soldier wearing neo-Nazi symbols while being awarded a medal for fighting in the city of Mariupol.
Putin and the Kremlin have pushed propaganda to justify the invasion of Ukraine by claiming the government in Kyiv is run by Nazis, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky being Jewish. The claims have been rejected by Zelensky and the international community.
Moscow has also inflated the role in Ukraine's military of the Azov Battalion, a far-right paramilitary group in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.
Video shared by Storyful shows a soldier, named as Lieutenant Roman Vorobyov from the "Somalia" motorized rifle battalion, receiving the "St. George's Cross II" award while wearing far-right insignia.
Receiving the award on Sunday from Denis Pushilin, who is the Putin-sponsored head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, two patches are visible on Vorobyov's right arm.
One is a modified version of a skull-and-crossbones emblem used by Nazi Germany's 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, an elite division of the Waffen-SS. The other is the Valknut, or Odin's knot, which is a symbol of interlocking triangles from Norse mythology commonly used by neo-Nazis. . . .
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-mariupol-azov-nazi-1695125Looks like the real nazis here are the DPR - the ones Putin has been supporting for the last eight years.