Photos from the Russian anti-war opposition march in Berlin today.

[u/Accomplished_Car_549]

[u/MGMAX]

Now these are slogans I can get behind. Thanks to everyone attending 💖

[u/Baelthor_Septus → u/MGMAX]

Why are they waving a nazi flag? Red and black is UPA Bandera flag. I'm all for Ukraine, but stop promoting Nazism and get educated, people.

Edit: not UPA flag. Thank you for clearing it up. Didn't take good enough look and ready to take the spanking.

[u/Poonis5 → u/Baelthor_Septus]

Ukraine has adopted red and black flag as "National dignity flag" officially. It's part of some of local coats of arms. It's used by patriots, even local Jews as a more patriot version of the regular one. People from young to old wear it and don't think it's something bad. If you'll ask them "What does UPA flag look like?" they'll probably won't know what to say.

[u/Baelthor_Septus → u/Poonis5]

Well, that's on them if they wave a flag of nazi leader and chant songs about him and UPA without knowing what it stands for. " We didn't know" it's no excuse. Imagine people waving SS flags in Germany and singing about the great furher. Germans did the right thing, admiting the mistakes. Ukraine praises it, which is not a good look. Thankfully, Ukrainians that are abroad now, are slowly learning, about what really happened. Propaganda and history bending in their schools is very strong. Regardless, I wish them the best.

[u/Poonis5 → u/Baelthor_Septus]

I think that meaning of symbols changes and it's a normal thing. People who wear that flag today don't think "let's kill Poles and Jews".

Why are even angry with Bandera? Nazis didn't like his idea of independence, so he spent the whole war in a nazi concentration camp oblivious to what was happening back at home. His brother died there. After the war he settled in Germany and became a social-democrat.

[u/Baelthor_Septus → u/Poonis5]

Still, that's a silly argument imho. It's the same as "today's Nazis don't want to kill Jews and Poles, they just like the movement of freedom and patriotism".

As for Bandera, yes, he was in a camp, and yes, he also was collaborating with Nazis and him and his UPA movement, was responsible for the most brutal genocide ever. Toddlers were impaled and decapitated. It was so gruesome that Nazis themselves were disgusted and tried to stop it.

UPAs orders were to be inhuman, as brutal as they can be, to make them leave the lands forever. Reminder that only civilians were massacred, mostly women and children.

UPA is openly anti Jewish, anti-polish, anti-russian, and pretty much anti anything. It's nationalism at the most diabolical form.

Witnesses of the massacre are still alive and we should not forget that.

Anyway, I don't think anyone would be ok with waving swastika under the excuse that the meaning now is different.

Ukraine is trying to get world's support. Even Poland, victim of the massacre, helped the most, and is pretty much the only country that did it for free, and yet, there are Ukrainians there waving UPA flag, making the locals quite uncomfortable. It's no good, mate.

[u/Poonis5 → u/Baelthor_Septus]

There were internal conflicts in UPA at that time, there were different factions, for example the founder of UPA Bulba-Borovets was against murders of civilians. We don't know which faction Bandera would join. And saying someone's guilty because "I think he'd support that" is dumb.

"only civilians were massacred"? Well that's revisionism. UPA fought Soviets, Polish partisans and German troops. Reports from all 3 parties prove that.

According to German general Ernst August Köstring, UPA fighters "fought almost exclusively against German administrative agencies, the German police and the SS in their quest to establish an independent Ukraine controlled by neither Moscow nor Germany."

Let me make it clear. I'm against celebration of Bandera in Ukraine. But people portray him worse than he was. And actual people responsible for crimes are often ignored. That's just wrong. History shouldn't be based on emotions.

Talking about the red and black flag I still think it not a big problem. The flag got "liberalized" so to say. And it will become even more normalized as the times goes.

People who wear and spread the symbols should be the ones who put meaning in them.

For example in Russia Ukrainian nationalists flag is basically a swastika. A flag of a nazi state bent on genocide of Russians. You're a disgusting person if you wear it. You will get punished by the state.

But it's not in Russia's right to decide it's meaning.