DISINFO: Ukraine decided to issue a stamp in honor of former SS soldier
SUMMARY
On Tuesday, September 26 (2023), the Ukrainian Post presented a sketch of a stamp depicting a 98-year-old Ukrainian nationalist who fought on the side of Germany during World War II. In addition to the ex-SS soldier himself, the front of the stamp depicted the applauding President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenskyy and his wife.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who stood next to the Ukrainian leader during the parliamentary meeting, is missing from this picture. At the same time, the Ukrainian government procurement website, Diya, published articles explaining that Nazism is “normal” and that fascist criminals are just “fighters for Ukrainian independence.”
RESPONSE
The claim is false.
News about the stamp appeared on 26 September 2023 in Russian pro-war social media channels, and then in the Russian state media. The authors of the posts refer to certain social networks, but no one indicates the original source. All the posts feature only two images: one of them was taken of the stamp in the hands of a person, allegedly at a Ukrposhta office, and the second is a photograph of the stamp glued to a postcard in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
The second photo allows to see the individual barcode, which appears in the first photo. Using the Barcode Lookup service, Factcheck.kz checked the barcode of the stamp allegedly presenting Yaroslav Hunka and it opened a completely different image, which is available on the Ukrainian Post website.
There are no articles explaining that Nazism is normal on the Ukrainian government procurement website. Instead, Nazi symbols are forbidden by law in Ukraine.
Pro-Kremlin media regularly use fabrications to accuse Ukraine of "Nazi rule". See for example the disinformation narrative "Ukraine's commander-in-chief wears a swastika bracelet" and Ukrainians remove swastika tattoos to travel to Europe.
"Nazi rule in Ukraine" is used as one of the pretexts by the Kremlin to the full scale invasion of Ukraine, which started on 24 February 2022.