Canadian Deputy PM holds fascist banner at Ukraine protest
3 Min Read
Chrystia Freeland tweeted and removed a controversial photo in which she's seen carrying a flag of renowned Nazi collaborator 'Ukrainian Insurgent Army,' enraging Canadians.
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Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland at the Ukrainian protest holding the Nazi banner (Sputnik)
After Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted and then removed a controversial photo in which she's seen carrying a flag of renowned Nazi collaborator 'Ukrainian Insurgent Army,' Canadians were outraged.
Freeland in the photo is seen carrying the "Slava Ukraini" banner in downtown Toronto and deleted the image roughly 12 hours after a slurry of social media users criticized the post. Freeland reposted the photo without the banner visible.
Canada’s Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland has now deleted her earlier post where she’s holding a banner with the colours of a far-right group and replaced it with one where she isn’t. pic.twitter.com/UdxtmaCgJi
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) February 28, 2022
Even after she reposted the photo, users quickly found that another flag was visible in the background.
Lmao not only did she get caught in 4K holding up the colours of the fascist UPA, she couldn’t even find a photo where somebody wasn’t throwin up the set https://t.co/WV2zP7ou9f pic.twitter.com/li4A6l5dLl
— Q. Anthony Omene (@qaomene) February 28, 2022
The official battle flag of the so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the paramilitary branch of the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, was red-and-black flags like the one held by Freeland on Sunday evening (OUN). For most of the twentieth century, the Central Intelligence Agency funded the organizations, which included a large number of Nazi collaborators.
The idea that Freeland was oblivious of the banner's Nazi background, as social media users pointed out, defies logic.
The records of Canada's Ukraine Archival records reveal that Freeland's grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was a Nazi collaborator who earned money laundering fascist propaganda to Ukrainian audiences. Although the truth is well-documented, Freeland has attempted to attribute it to Russian propaganda.
Western media has bolstered support for Ukraine, fueled by nonstop favorable coverage, however, it appears to have dwindled in recent days as the far-right leanings of some of the Ukrainian military's most prominent groups have come to light.
Read more: US, Ukraine vote against anti-Nazism UNGA resolution
However, the majority of mainstream media has disregarded the Deputy Prime Minister's preference for Nazi collaborator militias.
Remember when a swastika at Canada’s trucker protest became the focal point of media coverage?
— Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) February 28, 2022
Apparently the deputy prime minister posing with the banner of Holocaust collaborators who slaughtered tens of thousands of Poles, Jews & Roma doesn’t inspire the same outrage https://t.co/48vRHxcM7B
Media bias has been apparent in recent days as sites like NPR posted photographs of known groups' flags without disclosing their far-right connotations.
In September, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the arrest of the leader of a neo-Nazi group who was plotting a terror attack using an improvised explosive device in Vladivostok, in Russia's far east.
"The leader of the regional neo-Nazi group, Pravyie Primorya, born in 2000, who was plotting a terrorist attack using an improvised explosive device, has been apprehended," the FSB reported, adding that the attempted attack was aimed at "influencing the government’s decisions regarding migration policy."
It was the second terrorist attempt by neo-nazis in this recent period that Russian intelligence was able to foil. The FSB previously announced that it apprehended five neo-nazis suspected of plotting a series of terrorist acts against law enforcement in Russia's mostly Muslim-populated Bashkortostan region.
