Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has criticized the international community for its “silent tolerance” of Ukrainian troops using Nazi symbols, arguing that geopolitical considerations are overriding concerns about fascism.
Speaking at the holocaust museum at the former site of the Sered concentration camp in western Slovakia on Monday, Fico emphasized the importance of educating new generations about the horrors of the Nazi regime during World War II before addressing the Ukraine conflict.
“We all talk about fascism, Nazism, while silently tolerating units moving across Ukraine that have a very clear label and are connected to movements that we consider dangerous and forbidden today. Since it is a geopolitical fight, nobody cares,” Fico said.
“I want to pay tribute to the victims, not with pathetic speech, but I want to call for action,” he added. “The international community should recognize that troops using Nazi insignia, who often appear to act as such, cannot fight in Ukraine.”
Ukraine has embraced Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazi Germany as heroes, and symbols and ideology of the Third Reich have been popular among growing right-wing forces in the country for decades. The Azov battalion, infamous for its open embrace of bigotry and white supremacism and accused of war crimes and atrocities, claims to have mostly eradicated such individuals from its ranks.
Ukrainian troops have repeatedly been filmed brandishing Nazi iconography on their uniforms and weapons, including during the ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region. In a widely publicized incident, two Ukrainian soldiers filmed themselves imitating invading Wehrmacht troops while harassing an elderly Russian civilian. The man went missing after the encounter.
Thousands of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators fled to Western nations, such as Canada, following the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. Some of them were later used by the CIA in attempts to destabilize the USSR during the Cold War.
Just last week, Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa expressed reservations against releasing the list of some 900 alleged Nazi criminals who fled to the country after the war. Officials told the media that making the names public may embarrass the country’s Ukrainian community.
The Slovakian prime minister is a vocal critic of Western support for Kiev against Moscow. The Ukrainian Nazi link is one of the reasons he has cited in explaining his position.