(JNS) Melanie Phillips - It's true that many Ukrainian nationalists initially welcomed the German invaders as liberators during World War Two and collaborated with the occupation. Ukrainian anti-Semites were considered particularly savage. But Ukraine suffered more than Russia from Nazism, with more of its population being killed during the war than any other country. It is Putin himself who has unleashed neo-Nazism on Ukraine using the Wagner Group. This is a private army of mercenaries financed by pro-Kremlin oligarchs. It's led by Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence officer sporting Waffen-SS tattoos who allegedly named his outfit after Hitler's favorite composer. As Oved Lobel writes for the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, almost every major nationalist and racist, violent extremist group in the world today got its start from the neo-Nazi Iron March forum, started by Alisher Mukhitdinov in Russia in 2011. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.
2022-03-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive