A Ukrainian opposition lawmaker has come under fire after a video of him saluting Adolf Hitler surfaced online this weekend.
Artyom Vitko can be seen sitting in a car wearing camouflage fatigues singing along to a song by a Russian neo-Nazi band extolling the virtues of the Nazi dictator.
The former commander of the government backed Luhansk-1 Battalion who is now a member of Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party saluted the camera as the car’s sound system blared “Heil Hitler.”
“Adolf Hitler, together with us, Adolf Hitler, in each of us, and an eagle with iron wings will help us at the right time,” Vitko can be heard singing.
Vitko’s pro-Nazi sentiments came after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko apologized Ukraine’s complicity in the Holocaust.
During a recent visit to Israel, Poroshenko met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin and spoke before the Knesset.
Poroshenko said that “we must remember the negative events in history, in which collaborators helped the Nazis with the Final Solution.”
“When Ukraine was established [in 1991], we asked for forgiveness, and I am doing it now, in the Knesset, before the children and grandchildren of the victims of the Holocaust… I am doing it before all citizens of Israel,” he added.
Last week it was reported that Jewish residents of the Ukrainian city of Konotop were increasingly concerned by the behavior of recently elected Mayor Artem Semenikhin of the nationalist Svoboda party.
Residents told The Jerusalem Post that a decal on Semenikhin’s car features « 14/88 », a reference to the phrases “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” and “Heil Hitler”. Furthermore, he replaced the portrait of the country’s president in his office with a picture of Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
Semenikhin, who was elected in October refused to fly the official flag of the city at council meetings because he objected the Star of David featured on it (it should be noted that the flag also depicts a Muslim crescent and Christian cross).
Read More:
Jews of Ukrainian city concerned by actions of neo-Nazi mayor