David Pugliese
Ottawa Citizen, Apr. 13, 2022
“It’s not Russian propaganda, far from it. These people are neo-Nazis. There is an element of the ultra-right in Ukraine and it’s absurd to ignore it.”
A top Nazi hunter and Holocaust scholar says Canada failed when it allowed Ukrainian military personnel connected to far-right groups to receive training as recently as 17 months ago.
But the Canadian Forces says it had no obligation to be entirely certain of the backgrounds of those soldiers it trained in Ukraine.
Radio Canada reported Monday that Canadian military personnel trained both members of the far-right Azov regiment as well as at least one Ukrainian soldier who sported the crest of a Nazi SS unit from the Second World War. The training took place in November 2020.
Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel said in an interview with this newspaper that Canada failed to properly monitor its own military training program. “The Canadian government didn’t do its due diligence,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of the Canadian defence ministry to know exactly who they are training.”
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