On September 27, 2023, the Museum of the History of Kyiv was crowded. Around 200 people—including active Ukrainian military personnel, journalists, cultural figures, and politicians—came to the opening of an exhibition titled Storms of Steel, a reference to the 1920 memoir of the radical German nationalist Ernst Jünger.
It featured photographs of soldiers taken on the Bakhmut front line during the height of Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion. These soldiers belong to the 3rd Assault Brigade—one of the elite units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was formed in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The unit traces its origins to the ultra-nationalist Azov movement and is composed of veterans of the Azov Battalion, which was established in 2014 and took part in the war in the Donbas. Between 2018 and 2024, U.S. Congress banned the organization from receiving funding, arms, training, and other forms of support due to its documented neo-Nazi affiliations and concerns regarding human rights violations.
The founder and current commander of the 3rd Assault Brigade is Andriy Biletskyi, a far-right ideologue and central figure in the Azov movement. Biletskyi is the author of the openly racist 2013 pamphlet The Word of the White Leader and the founder of several neo-Nazi organizations, including Patriot of Ukraine and the National-Social Assembly.
A key feature of the exhibit was that the soldiers reenacted historical photos, particularly of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Founded in 1942, it fought for an independent Ukrainian state. However, it also took part in the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Poles in Western Ukraine, and some of its members served in Ukrainian auxiliary police units that facilitated the Nazi Holocaust
Viewers familiar with the iconography of the Third Reich might have raised eyebrows at one particular video shown during the opening of the exhibition. It featured a close-up of the back of the head of a 3rd Assault Brigade fighter known by the call sign “Martyn.” Tattooed on his head was a symbol resembling the Wolfsangel, the divisional insignia of several Waffen-SS units, including the infamous 2nd SS “Das Reich” Panzer Division. Azov affiliates often refer to a variant of this symbol as the “Idea of the Nation,” denying any direct associations with Nazism. Yet it is noteworthy that this same symbol is used by a neo-Nazi organization in Finland
Some of the fighters featured in the exhibition attended the opening. Among them was Aleksei Kozhemyakin, known by his call signs “Kolovrat” and “Barsik,” a platoon commander in the 3rd Assault Brigade. Kozhemyakin is a far-right Russian national. He allegedly came to Ukraine in 2015, joined the Azov Battalion and has been fighting on the Ukrainian side ever since. According to the SOVA Center, he served several years in prison for assaulting a man from Azerbaijan in Syktyvkar, Russia in 2005. He was also suspected of desecrating a Jewish cultural center in the same city.
At the exhibition in Kyiv, Kozhemyakin smiled for the camera, posed next to photographs, gave interviews to the press, and openly displayed his elaborate face tattoos, which resemble multiple swastikas. Other tattoos, hidden beneath his olive-green T-shirt, include a giant swastika and a portrait of Adolf Hitler at the center. Notably, in one of the photographs on display, Kozhemyakin participated in the reenactment of a group portrait featuring a unit of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. The exhibition caption referred to the group simply as the “Division ‘Galicia’”
Such a caption might confuse those unfamiliar with the history of the Second World War in Ukraine. But historians know exactly what this refers to: the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), created by Nazi Germany in 1943 and composed of Ukrainian volunteers. Its fighters swore allegiance to Hitler and were subordinate to SS Chief Heinrich Himmler. They defended the interests of Nazi Germany—including by brutally suppressing anti-Nazi resistance movements in Slovakia and Yugoslavia. After the Division was crushed by the Red Army near Brody, it was replenished with Ukrainian men who had served in various police formations complicit in Nazi war crimes.
A Tour Across the European Union
The Storms of Steel exhibition’s status as a major cultural event in wartime Ukraine was underscored by the presence of high-level officials at its opening. They included then-acting Minister of Culture and Information Policy Rostyslav Karandeyev, who praised the exhibition, noting , “I am convinced that this project will carry an extremely important patriotic and educational mission”
The exhibition caused a sensation. It was covered by leading Ukrainian media and became a popular venue for patriotic lessons for Ukrainian students, both in the capital and in other cities where local museums hosted it. Public discourse surrounding the exhibition was marked by a deafening silence about the fact that it glorifies Ukrainian Nazi collaborators and equates them with today’s fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
It was clear that Ukrainian officials were fond of this militarized “patriotic project,” as they decided to support it at the state level. The exhibition was reproduced on large banners framed in the colors of the Ukrainian national flag and taken on tour across Europe. It is no coincidence that the exhibition was hosted by countries that are not only among the most fervent supporters of Ukraine in its resistance to Russian aggression, but also those currently reckoning with their own communist past while simultaneously struggling to confront the legacy of their collaboration with the Nazis.
One of those countries was Lithuania. On August 23, 2024, to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day, the exhibition was ceremoniously opened at Vilnius Town Hall Square, one of the most popular tourist spots in the Lithuanian capital. The ceremony featured Sandra Adomavičiūtė, head of the Atviras Lietuvos Fondas (Open Lithuania Foundation), an organization funded by philanthropist George Soros. This suggests that the progressive group in question likely did not devote sufficient time to thoroughly examine the content of the exhibition they chose to promote. This also reflects a broader pattern of uncritical engagement by some Western actors with Ukraine’s current humanitarian and cultural policies, which are increasingly shaped by an ethnonationalist agenda and promoting controversial historical figures.
Adding official weight to the event was the presence of Viktor Hamotskyi, Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Lithuania. Commenting on the exhibition, he stated: “Each face in these photographs tells its own story—the story of the unbroken, who stand shoulder to shoulder with those who defended Ukraine a century ago.” The exhibition was announced on the official website of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Lithuania
In March 2024, Storms of Steel had already been displayed at the Vytautas the Great War Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania. In both Kaunas and Vilnius, photographs of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division were included as part of the exhibit — with the same deliberately coy captions, omitting any mention of whom the Division served under or against whom it fought during World War II.
One Lithuanian media outlet even published a feature on the exhibition, in which two of the five “historical” photographs presented showed members of the Division. Neither the author of the piece nor the editorial board provided any comment on this telling “detail.”
In April 2025, the exhibition — again including the Waffen-SS Galicia Division photographs — opened at the Baltic Defense College in Tartu, Estonia, a NATO-accredited education and training facility. According to the College’s official social media, the exhibition will remain on display there until June 2026
Timing Matters
The Storms of Steel exhibition at the Kyiv History Museum might have been just another of the countless military‑patriotic events desperately trying to instrumentalize historical myths to mobilize society against Ukraine’s “eternal enemy”—Russia. But the timing made it unique.
Its opening coincided with a full‑blown political scandal in Canada that garnered international attention. On September 22, 2023, Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian‑Canadian veteran of the Waffen‑SS Galicia Division, received a standing ovation in the Canadian Parliament.
Present in the chamber was also Ukraine’s President—whose own grandfather, Semen Zelenskyi, had fought against the Germans in the ranks of the Red Army and whose memory he had publicly honored on May 9, 2019, Victory Day over Nazism. Until recently, it had been an official state holiday in Ukraine. The enthusiasm with which Zelensky applauded Hunka strongly suggested that he had little idea which army Hunka had actually served in
But Hunka’s past quickly became the subject of intense media scrutiny, sparking not only the resignation of Canada’s House Speaker, but also a broader public debate about the history of postwar Canada as a safe haven for numerous Nazi collaborators. Calls spread for the release of all reports of the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, a federal investigation into suspected Nazi collaborators admitted to Canada. However, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress strongly opposed the publication of the reports.
Ukrainian officials, for their part, opted to refrain from any statements that might further inflame the situation surrounding Hunka. Yet inside Ukraine, a public debate did take place. Some prominent public figures, politicians, and local authorities openly lionized Hunka, portraying the Waffen-SS Galicia Division as part of Ukraine’s “national liberation movement.” Members of the far-right Svoboda party, including those who serve in the military now, launched a social media flash mob in support of Yaroslav Hunka.
In ultranationalist circles, the view that the campaign to “discredit” Hunka is “Ukrainophobic” and orchestrated by the “Jewish slanderers” has gained popularity. Meanwhile, members of the Avangard far-right group, now part of the 3rd Assault Brigade, have not hesitated to use antisemitic rhetoric, accusing Jewish organizations in Canada and worldwide of fueling this campaign.
Moreover, on September 28 — just one day after the Kyiv exhibition’s opening — the Center for Countering Disinformation, a body under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council reporting to Zelensky, issued a statement whitewashing the Division, claiming–falsely–that “the Nuremberg Tribunal did not find the unit guilty of any war crimes.” What the statement conspicuously omitted was that the entire SS—including the Waffen‑SS—had been declared a criminal organization, and that the Waffen-SS Galicia Division had never been subject to any separate Nuremberg review.
Thus, the central Ukrainian authorities not only failed to condemn the glorification of the Waffen‑SS Galicia Division but actively enabled it—even during the Hunka scandal
The Problem is Deeper
The stance taken by Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation on the Hunka affair shows clearly that the country’s political leadership has no intention of clashing with the military‑nationalist milieu, which has turned the Waffen‑SS Galicia Division into an object of cult worship. And this is not just about the 3rd Assault Brigade, which featured photos of the Division’s members in its exhibition. The official Facebook page of the Command of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine promoted the exhibition, mentioning Waffen‑SS Galicia Division participants alongside other Ukrainian military formations, including the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which existed from 1917 to 1921.
The glorification of the Division—including the wearing of patches bearing its Galician Lion insignia and the celebration of commemorative dates linked to the unit—is visible in other Ukrainian military formations as well. These include the 1st Separate Assault Regiment “Dmytro Kotsiubailo” (the “Da Vinci Wolves”), the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Karpatska Sich, the Kraken special unit under Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov, and fighters from Svoboda, currently serving in various units
But the glorification of Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II is part of a broader phenomenon: Nazi revisionism is woven into the military culture of contemporary war-torn Ukraine. Its core idea is to portray Nazi Germany as the lesser evil in contrast to Stalin’s “prison of nations” that “oppressed Ukrainian national aspirations.” Some go even further and praise Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union and compare it to the current confrontation between Ukraine—supported by Western countries—and Russia as a continuation of the “civilizational struggle” between Europe and Asia.
A vivid example of this extreme position is expressed by the Artiom ‘Uragan’ Krasnolutsky who currently holds a command position in the 3rd Assault Brigade. On May 9, which is celebrated in Russia and other post-Soviet countries as Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, he wrote on his social media:
Adolf Hitler did not sign the capitulation. The echoes of that war are still clearly heard today—in some places, even the flags remain unchanged. It is a war of the multicultural horde against White people—the eternal struggle between light and darkness, life and death. A sacred crusade of the Übermensch for the triumph of the great over the grotesque. Cursed be the Soviet army
Signs of the rehabilitation of Nazism are visible in Ukrainian military circles. This is manifested, in particular, in the use of Nazi symbols. For example, the Vedmedi Assault Group, under the 36th Coastal Defense Brigade, uses SS bolts on its insignia alongside the SS motto Meine Ehre heißt Treue (“My Honor is Loyalty”).
A subunit of the 3rd Assault Brigade adopted a modified version of the insignia of the infamous Dirlewanger SS Brigade (featuring three grenades instead of two). Meanwhile, fighters of the Karpatska Sich often wear patches, shirts, flags, and other items emblazoned with the insignia of the 3rd SS Panzer Division “Totenkopf”—notorious for its brutality and numerous war crimes, including the massacres at Le Paradis and Chasselay. The 422nd Battalion of Unmanned Systems not only adopted the title Luftwaffe but also uses the same eagle emblem employed by Nazi Germany’s air force
In 2023, a Ukrainian unit named Nachtigall was created. It became a part of the 413th Separate Battalion of Unmanned Systems “Raid,”commanded by Yevhen Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi group C14, which was involved in an anti-Roma pogrom in Kyiv and attacks on LGBTQ+ activists, journalists, and left-wing activists. The name of this unit explicitly referencing the Nachtigall Battalion, formed by the German Abwehr in 1941 from ethnic Ukrainians, mainly members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). One of its commanders was Roman Shukhevych, who later led the UPA. The battalion participated in anti‑Jewish pogroms in Vinnytsia Oblast in the summer of 1941. The following year, the Germans restructured it into Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201, which carried out crimes against anti‑Nazi resistance groups and civilians, including Jews, in Belarus
Some Ukrainian soldiers even choose call signs with Nazi associations. For example, Vadym Voroshylov, a celebrated Ukrainian ace pilot, openly explains the meaning of his call sign, “Karaya”—taken from Erich Hartmann, the most successful Luftwaffe ace of the Third Reich. He has said he thought it would be a great way to “troll” Russians.
It is important to emphasize that the use of Nazi symbols and names that evoke associations with Nazi Germany is not merely a problem of isolated units or individual soldiers. Due to the ongoing war, the Armed Forces of Ukraine enjoy the highest levels of public trust in Ukrainian society. In public discourse, the army is glorified and celebrated, receiving people’s material and moral support. A moratorium on criticism of servicemen is widely perceived as an inherent part of the gratitude owed to those defending the country from Russian aggression.
As a result, there is an almost total absence of public criticism regarding the use of Nazi symbols within the military. A conspiracy of silence surrounds this issue. At the same time, any attempt to initiate public discussion on the topic is promptly and unequivocally dismissed as “Russian propaganda” and as enabling Vladimir Putin’s narrative of “denazification,” which served as one of the pretexts for the war against Ukraine. Therefore, those who raise the issue face harsh criticism and are accused of being unpatriotic—or even of “betraying the homeland.”
This witch-hunt contributes to the gradual legitimization of Nazi apologia in Ukrainian society as a whole. One of the key tools in this process is merchandise—T-shirts, mugs, patches, caps, keychains, notebooks, and similar items—that certain brigades and individual soldiers sell for fundraising purposes. Another mechanism involves youth-oriented initiatives, including military and medical training sessions, patriotic camps, cultural events, and so-called “lessons in courage” conducted in public schools by soldiers, veterans, and members of affiliated far-right youth organizations
Some brigades that use Nazi symbols effectively have their own youth organizations. The largest of these is Centuria, which has chapters across Ukraine and even abroad, including in Germany. Originally founded as a paramilitary youth wing of the Azov movement, it has effectively come under the patronage of the 3rd Assault Brigade and now trains future fighters for it. Members of Centuria, like their mentors, glorify the Waffen-SS Division Galicia
Notably, the use and promotion of Nazi symbols in Ukraine is not merely a matter of responsible engagement with history. It directly contradicts Ukraine’s own memory laws passed in 2015, which ban and criminalize the “propaganda of the National Socialist regime.” More importantly, it constitutes a desecration of the memory of the millions murdered, maimed, and deported by the Nazis and their allies—and an insult to the millions, including over six million Ukrainians, who fought against Nazism in the ranks of the Red Army.
This minimization of Nazi crimes not only distances Ukraine from European culture of memory—a culture built on the condemnation of Nazism and the commemoration of its victims. It also undermines the very future of Ukraine, a country whose political and military leaders insist they are fighting for democracy [end]
The original article
Marta Havryshko is Dr. Thomas Zand Visiting Assistant Professor in Holocaust Pedagogy and Antisemitism Studies, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University
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