German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers

A news broadcast by German ZDF station on September 8 showed soldiers of the Ukraine Azov Battalion near Mariupol with Nazi symbols on their helmets. 

The Azov Battalion, ascribed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs is led and commanded by members of the neo-Nazi Social-National Assembly and its paramilitary wing “Patriots of Ukraine”.

ZDF Moscow correspondent Bernhard Lichte used pictures of a soldier wearing a combat helmet with the “SS runes” of Hitler’s infamous black-uniformed elite corps and another one with a swastika.

The footage had been shot by Norwegian team from TV2 station. “We were filming a report about Ukraine’s AZOV battalion in the eastern city of Urzuf, when we came across these soldiers,” Oysten Bogen, a correspondent for the private television station, told NBC News.

Norwegian TV station TV2 also broadcast the footage as part of a report on Norwegian volunteers going to fight in Ukraine (see here: http://www.tv2.no/v/840782/).

In a separate report about the Azov Battalion, British newspaper Guardian had this to say about the member of this volunteer force:

“Many of its members have links with neo-Nazi groups, and even those who laughed off the idea that they are neo-Nazis did not give the most convincing denials. “Of course not, it’s all made up, there are just a lot of people who are interested in Nordic mythology,” said one fighter when asked if there were neo-Nazis in the battalion. When asked what his own political views were, however, he said “national socialist”. As for the swastika tattoos on at least one man seen at the Azov base, “the swastika has nothing to do with the Nazis, it was an ancient sun symbol,” he claimed.”

The commander of the Battalion and main leader of the SNA and Patriots of Ukraine, the neo-nazi Andrej Biletski has now been appointed to the Military Council of the newly formed Popular Front Party, established by Prime Minister Yatseniuk, Parliament Speaker Turchynov and Interior Minister Arsene Avakov, amongst others.

Turchynov with Biletski at Popular Front launch

Biletski at Patriots of Ukraine congress 2008

Link to the ZDF news broadcast: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/2234384/ZDF-heute-Sendung-vom-08-September-2014