Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked World War II Victory Day by sharing an image of a Ukrainian soldier wearing the ‘death’s head’ patch of an elite Nazi Waffen SS unit. While the picture was soon deleted from his social media, the Ministry of Defense in Kiev also posted the photo.
The offending item was placed on Instagram and Telegram by Zelensky, on Monday. In it, a soldier next to an artillery gun wears the ‘death’s head,’ or “totenkopf” insignia of the 3rd SS Panzer Division, a unit of elite Nazi soldiers infamous for committing numerous war crimes and massacres of French civilians and Polish Jews. Zelensky himself is of Jewish heritage.
Advocacy groups consider the death’s head logo a “hate symbol” used by “Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.”
While the photo was soon removed, it was also posted to Twitter by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, under a quote by Zelensky acknowledging May 9 as the “Day of Victory over Nazism.”