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Written by Alexander Rubinstein. Originally published on The Grayzone
The Ukrainian President published a photograph on his social media channels showing one of his security escorts bearing a patch referencing the personal bodyguard unit of Adolf Hitler.
On September 13, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky made a surprise trip to the city of Izyum in the Kharkov Region for a photo op following his military’s recapture of the town from Russian forces. During the visit, a soldier who appeared to be guarding Zelensky was photographed wearing a Nazi-inspired patch on his uniform.
When the image drew criticism on social media, the Ukrainian president’s official Telegram and Facebook accounts quietly deleted it.
In Izyum on September 14, Zelensky participated in a flag raising ceremony to the tune of the Ukrainian National Anthem and took selfies with local civilians and soldiers. While most of the men on the scene wore official military fatigues, it was not difficult to see which ones were for lack of a better term, working, and which ones were simply present to participate in the event.
One photograph posted on Zelensky’s Telegram and Facebook accounts (archived here and here) captured the president as he posed for selfies with Ukrainian troops. As Zelensky flashed a smile for the camera of a cheerful service member, he was flanked by a heavily equipped soldier standing guard and facing the opposite direction. Just over Zelensky’s right shoulder, a small but significant patch could be seen on the back of the soldier’s flak vest.
Social media users quickly identified the symbol. It was derived from the “Totenkopf,” (German for “Death’s Head”), an insignia widely used in Nazi Germany. Badges incorporating the skull and bones motif were popularized by Germany’s Death’s Head Units, whose original task was to serve as guards at concentration camps. In October 1939, some 6,500 members were deployed as frontline fighters in the attempted conquest of Europe and the Soviet Union, carrying out war crimes and ethnic cleansing on their way.
SS-Totenkopf’s symbol
Zelensky’s bodyguard appeared to sport a slightly altered version of the SS-Totenkopf’s patch; it was missing the crossbones and the skull was wearing a helmet.
However, this reporter was able to find three online vendors based in Ukraine that sell the patch, which is branded the “Operator Skull” and manufactured by a company called R3ICH, an explicit reference to Nazi Germany.
A side-by-side comparison of the R3ICH patch and an enhanced version of the patch worn by Zelensky’s bodyguard
While a clear and sizable shot of the insignia decorating Zelensky’s apparent bodyguard has yet to emerge, enhanced renderings of the image demonstrate he was clearly sporting the same design manufactured by R3ICH. Both badges feature a skull wearing a helmet, the headgear is virtually identical, the nose and eye holes share the same amount of space between them, the silhouettes are indistinguishable, and the tally marks drawn on the helmet appear in the same location.
A closer look at the R3ICH’s “Operator Skull” patch reveals an even more disturbing detail: a skeleton key displayed on the top right of the helmet is a clear reference to SS Division Leibstandarte, or Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler — Hitler’s personal bodyguard unit. The unit later evolved into a Panzer, or armored tank division and, like the Totenkopf, participated in several invasions throughout Europe and the Soviet Union.
The skeleton key emblem of the SS Division Leibstandarte
While the SS Division Leibstandarte made its way through Kharkov — where this week Zelensky’s bodyguard was photographed with the “Operator Skull” patch — during the Second World War, one of its units earned the nickname “Blowtorch Battalion” for its habit of burning down Russian-speaking villages.
A soldier of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler lights his cigarette on the burning thatched roof of a building in Kharkov. Photo via German Federal Archives
After this reporter took to social media to report that Zelensky’s bodyguard appeared to be wearing the “Operator Skull” patch, no less than eight Twitter users asserted the image was photoshopped. Shockingly, Twitter even deemed MintPress News’ tweet about the photograph to be “sensitive content,” an apparent attempt at damage control on Zelensky’s behalf that reduced the image’s visibility on the platform.
The sighting of the Nazi patch recalled a 2018 incident in which then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko posed with soldiers bearing placard featuring the Nazi Totenkopf symbol. Newsweek spuriously claimed, “The image included a skull and bones that appear to have been Photoshopped onto the photograph of the Ukrainian troops.” However, as The Grayzone reported, the soldier standing directly beside Poroshenko was wearing the Nazi-inspired patch on his chest. The paratroopers later apologized for displaying the Nazi symbol, further discrediting Newsweek’s spin.
I suppose @BBCNews also edited the patch onto the soldier’s uniform as well? pic.twitter.com/Cn5Uniyxi5
— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) September 15, 2022
As before, the image of the Nazi patch was real. What’s more, the R3ICH company’s “Operator Skull” patch seems quite popular in Ukraine. Of the three Ukraine-based online shops that this reporter discovered were selling the Nazi emblem, none had any left in stock.
Note from SF:
A video posted in the Ukrainian media in which a Ukrainian flag is hosted over Balakleya, shows a Ukrainian soldier with a Nazi SS Totenkopf on his helmet:
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More recently shared photos of Ukrainian servicemen:
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These neo Nazi Ukrainians, wouldn’t surprise me a bit say they’re fans of Western ways of life probably love watching Hollywood movies.
When their day comes may they rest in pieces.
I want to see a picure of a meatless ukranzi KIA’s skull sticking out of a flakjacket with a nazi deathshead skull patch.
Anyone got any?
All they know about Nazis is Hollywood bullshit and maybe some Discovery Channel images they cannot comprehend in their unneducated way.
This nazi symbol comes from the templars and they used it in their pirate ships, after being expelled from Christianity as pagans pedos sodomites. Nazis, pirates, templars. Nothing is more westerner!
It does not matter what they are they are protecting their jewish president. They are destroying embarassing putin everturn. If putin is man enough to defeat these so called by hitler body guards we will see
The Totenkopf has been used by the German military since the Eighteenth Century..it wasn’t a ‘Nazi’ symbol anymore than the lron Cross…. The Nazi symbol is the left orientated swastika…
Perhaps these imbeciles are Germans… Whatever… they will certainly pose a problem for NATO and the ‘jews’ in Ukraine if they defeat the ahem Wagner conscripts who seem to be the enemy…
The Russians are fielding…
Fake News. Distraction from recent victories by my Ukrop brothers and the thousands of Israelis who assist in the upcoming victory. Read that and weep cowards.
Thats if anything is left of Ukraine -after Poland says it wants land that it once owned now Romania has announced it wants back a large portion of Ukraine – meanwhile the Moldova government has told its citizens to go into the forests and gather firewood for the winter .
Some Moldovan citizens had a better idea, protesters wearing George Ribbon’s blocked a NATO armored column – guess they would rather have gas heating instead!
Perhaps they wanted to save the column from certain death going eastward.
The obfuscation of the Ukrotard Nazi impetus is ridiculous. No Nazis, no 2014 coup. Parubiy, Yarosh, Biletsky, etc. are all full-blown Ukrotard racist kooks and without them Krusty the Klown of Kiev could never have been installed after Porky fled. The lies to cover up the relationship of the US and their NATO vassals to the Ukro-Nazis for over seventy-five years never fails to amuse. MI6 brought the survivors of SS Division Galicia to Canada. For years the colonization of the Canadian body politic with these degnerates was denied. When it became undeniable, it was pinned on a Canada Ukrotard-supremacist in the Canadian military, but it was definitely an imperial NATO operation. A lot of the original Ukrainian immigrants to Canada were leftists, so they supplanted them with rightist-identitarian racist kooks. It’s kind of a double-bind for identitarians who have to reconcile their Israel-love with Ukrotard-love.
so, i miss photos of nazi wagner group leader Dmitri Utkin with his SS-tattoos
liar
Lying about what?
While it might be true about the tattoos– to counteract that he has fought hard for Russia in many campaigns in Syria- Crimea -CAR and elsewhere– presented with the Russian high honour of the medal – Knight of the Order of Courage and is TOTALLY PRO Russia – highly thought of by the Russian government — its the west that hates him the EU has sanctioned him.
I wont be criticising him for his loyalty to Russia i will leave that to the USA/EU and paid posters.
Nothing else in your spank-bank? Anyhow, Wagner and Utkin are certainly enigmatic. Russia is engaged in big-boy statist games and an entity like Wagner, such as it is, offers deniability to the state. I think that covert operations represent a massive threat to whatever vestigal democratic institutions still exist in the wordl. The structures of covert war in the US now set policy outside of the democratic institutions of the state. So you get narcotics trafficking as state policy, false-flag terrorism, money-laundering and relentless deception of the population in the name of national security. Golden Triangle heroin production, Columbian cocaine industry, Afghanistan/Pakistan heroin industry, October Surprise, Iran-Contra, the entire Troubles in Northern Ireland, Mau Maus, etc. The Russian state is joining a very nasty game. It remains to be seen if it’s worth it.
But you told us Wagner did not exist 🤔
Yes, I did. And there is no evidence that it does. Why not get an adult to read my post to you. Try to find someone with a half-decent command of English. Then resume shilling on SF.
Lol!
Or advise her to shill Huff Post, where trannies lie.
Pathetic stupid lies you pathetic morons repeat like parrots when you can’t explain 1000000000000000000000000000000000000 evidences of blatant Nazism worshiping in Ukraine.
Azov, Aidar, Myrotvorets, Right Sektor, Svboda, Parubiy, Tyahnybok, Yarosh, etc etc but then you morons have like 2 moronic ‘argumets”: 1)Zelensky is Jewish and “Jews can’t be Nazis” (go ask Erhard Milch), 2) and there is one obscure photo with some bald guy supposedly Utkin with SS tattoo. Big fucking deal. The Wagner Group is Private MC, nothing to do with ideology even if Utkin is (was) neonazi. So yeah, you morons are full of shit.
Israelis are modern Nazis. ZioNazis/Nazionists
Speaking of Haavara, perhaps they were in the ’30s too.
Zio Jews are same as nazis Not all Jews
wagners leader is a half jew
Poor baby.
Zelonsky the bolchevic nazi digital pedo delleting is anus with hitler monkeys
Did ukraine overtake Lyman ?
Not yet…just wait for Igor konashenkov telling about another tactical retreat/ Reposition
Help meeeeeeeee….I’m shrinking!
Stop it or we will have another Elensky.
Would an acolyte of Hitler be protecting a New World Order Jew?
The patch may not have the meaning to the wearer that you impute to it.
Good Observation and I agree .
Somehow us soldiers are more into Putting ☠️ on than 🐨
Keyboard warrior douche-bags can decorate however they see fit, I suppose.
Horrido johoo, dran drauf drüber
Served and earned my Edelweiß. No clue who u are, if u ever served and have any knowledge,what being a soldier means
English please, keyboard muppet.
🖕 pathetic 👎
Derp
5 years old retard confirmed ^^^
Fick dich, du Schlampe. You only earned a yankee dildo in your ass while playing Call of Duty of some other gay garbage in your basement you dumb 5 years old faggot.
Stop telling me ur pathetic 👎🖕 life story, dumb sob.
2nd grade grammar mistake. It’s…WE soldiers, doofus.
He was too busy learning how the Ukrainians built the pyramids, invented the wheel and won both world wars singlehandedly to attend English class.
How can I get copies of Ukrainian textbooks? I want to resurrect Mad Magazine.
The heart of Ukrotardism is not “NWO Globalism”‘, it’s their kooky identitarian beliefs, which, like all identitarian rubbish, is completely self-contradictory. These areseholes aren’t “acolytes of HItler”, they’re racist kooks who identify with Nazism due to the particular nature of Banderpite Ukrotardation.
“Me first movement”, eh 😆😆😆 They forgot their BLM nigha patch. Shame on them. They forgot their tranny patch. Shame on them.
Circle jerk libtards. Somebody did a good number on them. They are all getting ohmed.
Did ukraine realy in Lyman is the war over , had russian lost ??
English, please.
Pathetic 👎
Yes you are… also retarded and gay 🖕
To quote Max schmidt : halt die Fresse
Little bitch Ganus learned a few German words in his kindergarten in Lwow or Romania or Poland or whatever NATO shithole owned by Yanks and now thinks he is Rommel hahaha. Same retard as these ukro-faggots. Try this one: Verpiss dich! Or to quote your master and lord Joe Biden: shut up you stupid son of a bitch
Can’t you read pig latin? I thought it was your native tongue.
Well, of course you did. You’re an imbecile.
I smell something, Clyde. You having your period again?
It is obvious that Putin’s russia is a joke and cant win this war.
Even if all of a sudden,the Battlefield Fortune would turn, Ukrainian forces mass surrender,it wont change anything.
Russia cant Control Ukraine,it doesnt have the man power to do so and the russian Population isnt willing to sacrifice for the war effort.
Putin knows it and thus fear nothing more than having to declare mass Mobilisation.
So Ukraine attack belograd, drive a tank column into russia, make state Propaganda world crumble, showing nothing is going to plan and that there is no way to Victory .
You’re copying and pasting your own posts on different articles. The embodiment of a shill.
You are a joke – without a punchline. But not funny, just a dumb, boring shitty joke/black comedy. Something like Zelenclownsky.
English please. Even Ebonics will do for you.
Lol 🖕
Isn’t the whole of rump Ukraine an Affirmative Action project?
OMG, that is the greatest quip ever on SF.
Despite receiving free weapons from 40+ countries, and full mobilization, ukraine cannot take back Kherson, Mariupol nor Crimea. What a bunch of losers!
They’re being kept in a second-rate condition like any other US asset. Both Iran and Iraq received all kinds of stuff during the 1980s when the US was using both sides to destabilize the region, but neither ever had a first-world military.
That’s nothing. The Russians lost 20,000 aircraft just in the Izyum offensive alone.
Don’t believe me. You can read about it on BBC’s website.
I did! I did! Yipeeeee! We’re winning. Did you hear that? We’re winning! Scholtzy, now I give you der big kisser smacky on der heiny. We’re Winning!
Ukroretards use white cross on their vehicles, lame imitation of Balkenkreuz or something (Horty’s Hungarian fascists also used White cross in WW2)
Ukroretards really want to be Nazis, but if Nazis won all so-called ukrainians would be completely exterminated.
Shhh! You’ll break their Ukrotarded hearts.
I love to see white Balkenkreuz back in Action.
Dran drauf drüber, horrido johoo
Die Roten/ bolshiviks kommen nie wieder zur Ruh
That’s a pretty weird fetish, Keyboard Bonaparte.
Ukrainians are people with extreme inferiority complex even worse than Poles. Russians always considered them inferior. Germans considered them inferior. Even Poles consider Ukrainians inferior. They don’t really have their own identity, history, heritage…. Their biggest “hero” is some obscure war criminal and quisling Bandera. What you expect from such a “nation”?
“In Izyum on September 14, Zelensky participated in a flag raising ceremony to the tune of the Ukrainian National Anthem and took selfies with local civilians and soldiers.”
It was a perfect opportunity to greet him with Kalibr or Iskander, send him and his bodyguards to Bandera and Himmler.
Missed chance as always.. zelensky is at least out in the Open…putler is hiding, nowhere near the front. Coward Bastard.
Good lord, you are a stupid creature. Why would the Executive of the Russian Federation be near the front? Your posts are infantile drivel.
And more silence from the west these are his trusted bodyguards and they still muck up the photo op The west openly backing nazis as Zionist run America has the same ideology
We own you all
In future fat buttocks Zelensky suk off men with hitler tattoo only at secret parties for old men with big bulge in underwear at biolabs celebrations
Only for the 10,000 dildos of the anus Zelensky fights over to get more of the lubricating jellies. Dildos of the big swastika of the mulattos in nebraska trailer park for celebration he is dressing as Big Whore of the Fat Buttocks is big dancer in heels
This is typical of Zionist Jew militants branding themselves as someone else while they commit attrocities against Christians, then piss off back to Israel and pretend they didn’t do a tour in Ukraine, Syria or Iraq, except during their MOSSAD debriefing on their escapades as a fake ISIS toady.
As a German Soldier and supporter of the cause of the SMO of the RFAF and the Allied Forces, I am deeply “Not amused” about the fact that these UCKRO Scum wearing German Symbols, they don’t understand anywhere.. the Skull Symbol of the Schutz Staffel Units(former Saal Schutz, till 1934)goes back on the Unit Symbol of the “Königliche Leibhusaren Regiment No 1″of the Royal Prussian Cavalry, led by the great Horse Lord DERFLINGER back in the early 18th century. Later on after conversion of the LSSAH into a full scale Tank Division in the 40’s,the Unit saw themself in the Tradition of Prussian Horse Warriors in Royal and Imperial German Military Heritage. Despite the facts of those wrong and for us Germans shamefully War against our natural Allie Russia (resp. USSR at the Time) you have to remind that the most badass combat records of the 1.PZ.DIV.LSAH given in 44/45 on the Western Front against the Americans, Canadians and Brits, here they gained a Kill ratio from 12 to 15 to 1,so that American Warlords like Patton call them “Black Demons”..these facts in Mind it seems that the Uckros like to wear Symbols of of Slaughters of their US Patreons, how crazy and dimp is this?!
Stalin killed many more in Ukraine then Hitler.
No, he didn’t.
nazi sympathizer
I’m not a Nazi sympathizer. I’m a proud faggot working for the US who is the father of the Nazis.
Presidents of USSA offen , if not always a member of nazi group Skull and Bones.
Russian bases and air defense units are getting continuously destroyed, russian soldiers are desperate and rather surrender than dying fighting for fascist Putler. It’s over for the russian armed forces in Ukraine – nobody is afraid of paper tiger Russia 😃
How many Ukrainian personnel killed in the last four weeks? The US sure seems scared of something, what with the tens of billions pumped in the armed forces of the failed Ukrainian CIA project.
What a wonderful combination….jew, clown, nazi-fascist….Zelensky. I wonder, what would be the opinion about Zelensky-jew of all those poore jews killed under nazi-ukraine hands (Baldera) and who help nazi-german to kill more jews and fought against Soviet Union.