Renowned ‘Nazi Hunter’ Claims Canada Failed by Training Members of Extremist Ukrainian Battalion

“There is no doubt that the members of the Azov battalion are far-right radicals and they will be the first to admit it,” Efraim Zuroff said.

In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen new outlet, Efraim Zuroff, a renowned historian, ‘Nazi hunter’ and representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, said that Canada has failed by allowing members of Ukrainian far-right groups to participate in military training programs organized in Ukraine.

“The Canadian government didn’t do its due diligence,” Zuroff said. “It is the responsibility of the Canadian Defense Ministry to know exactly who they are training,” he stressed.

This Monday, April 11, Radio-Canada reported that several images published in 2020 by the Ukrainian authorities of the UNIFIER program, launched by the Canadian government to “support the Ukrainian Security Forces,” testify to the presence of soldiers with symbols of the neo-Nazi Azov battalion on their uniforms. These symbols included a Spartan helmet and the stylized “wolfsangel” symbol, as well as a patch with a yellow lion and three crowns, similar to that of the Waffen-SS 14th Division.

In response, the Canadian Defense Ministry commented that the members of the Azov battalion did not participate in the training. However, it added that the supervisors of the operation “do not exercise supervision of the military personnel selected to attend the training courses.”

According to Veronique Sabourin, of the Canadian Armed Forces, members of the Canadian Forces received the necessary information to recognize the insignia and patches linked to extreme right groups. At the same time, she revealed that “there is no burden of proof on the Canadian Armed Forces to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt .”

“There is no doubt that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine”
According to the Canadian media, Canadian officials, already in 2017, had recognized the links between the Azov battalion and Nazi ideology. However, the Ottawa Citizen has pointed out that one of the side effects of the Russian military operation in Ukraine has been “a broader approval of Azov” in the West, with some members of the public going so far as to claim that the accusations against the battalion “are part of the Russian disinformation campaign.”

For his part, Zuroff recalled that the ties between the Ukrainian battalion and neo-Nazism have nothing to do with alleged “Russian propaganda.” “There is no doubt that there are neo-Nazis in different forms in Ukraine, whether they are from the Azov battalion or other organizations,” Zuroff said. “These people are neo -Nazis. There is a far-right element in Ukraine and it is absurd to ignore it,” he added.

“There is no doubt that the members of the Azov battalion are extreme right-wing radicals and they will be the first to admit it. Just because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin says it does not mean it is a lie,” the historian reiterated via Twitter.

Since 2014, the government of Canada has invested more than $890 million CAD (about $705 million USD) in training Ukraine’s military through its UNIFIER program.

Featured image: Canadian military officers interacting with their Ukrainian counterparts. File photo.

(Actualidad RT) with Orinoco Tribune Content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/KW