The 1st Separate Mechanized Battalion (1-й окремий механізований батальйон) is a unit of the Ukrainian Army initially formed as a splinter of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, a militia aligned to the Right Sector organisation.
The group was nicknamed the “Da Vinci Wolves” (Вовки Да Вінчі) after the alias of its commander, Dmytro Kotsiubailo, a former Right Sector commander who was awarded the Hero of Ukraine honour by President Zelensky.
Some forces of the Battalion later splintered into the 108th Separate Mechanized Battalion (Da Vinci Wolves)
In April, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted a photograph on its Twitter account of a soldier wearing a patch featuring a skull and crossbones known as the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head. The specific symbol in the picture was made notorious by a Nazi unit that committed war crimes and guarded concentration camps during World War II.
The patch in the photograph sets the Totenkopf atop a Ukrainian flag with a small No. 6 below. That patch is the official merchandise of Death in June, a British neo-folk band that the Southern Poverty Law Center has said produces “hate speech” that “exploits themes and images of fascism and Nazism.”
The Anti-Defamation League considers the Totenkopf “a common hate symbol.” But Jake Hyman, a spokesperson for the group, said it was impossible to “make an inference about the wearer or the Ukrainian army” based on the patch.
“The image, while offensive, is that of a musical band,” Hyman said.
The band now uses the photograph posted by the Ukrainian military to market the Totenkopf patch.
The New York Times asked the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on April 27 about the tweet. Several hours later, the post was deleted. “After studying this case, we came to the conclusion that this logo can be interpreted ambiguously,” the ministry said in a statement.
The soldier in the photograph was part of a volunteer unit called the Da Vinci Wolves, which started as part of the paramilitary wing of Ukraine’s “right sector,” a coalition of right-wing organizations and political parties that militarized after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
At least five other photographs on the Wolves’ Instagram and Facebook pages feature their soldiers wearing Nazi-style patches, including the Totenkopf.
- https://news.yahoo.com/nazi-symbols-ukraine-front-lines-114825778.html?ref=upstract.com
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230705173604/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/world/europe/nazi-symbols-ukraine.html
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