Trudeau apologizes after man who fought in Nazi unit was praised by parliamentarians at Zelenskyy event

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized on behalf of Canada's Parliament after a man who fought in Adolf Hitler's Nazi forces was included in an event last week honouring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"This was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada. All of us who were in this House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context," Trudeau said in a brief statement to reporters.

Liberal caucus sources have told CBC News that Trudeau told MPs Wednesday they should avoid speaking to the press about Hunka's invitation and the subsequent fallout, and that the media frenzy would die down if they stayed tight-lipped.


Whoops...

I think this ties into what I've previously commented on. Where, because of the perception that "Russia = Pro Trump", people get the takeaway that "Anyone who fights/fought against Russia must = Good"

...which has also likely led to people justifying our involvement in Ukraine using reasons that they would've scoffed at when presented by republicans trying to justify our past involvements in the Middle East.

friend of said:

Justin is Canada's biggest embarrassment

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I don't think it's just a "Justin Problem"

It would seem as if many people have allowed their "anything against Russia must be good since Putin helped Trump" tunnel vision.

A couple of publications and celebs (I believe Mark Hamill may have been the latest) have had to walk back certain things and make apologies for not being careful and realizing that there was Nazi imagery behind the people he was talking to.

Prior to the invasion, it was acceptable to point out that Ukraine had a bit of a Nazi/Nationalist problem.

For instance, take this 2018 piece from Reuters:

Now, anyone claiming that the situation may be more complicated than "Russia help Orange Man, Ukraine fight Russia, so Ukraine good Russia bad" gets accused of either being pro-Russia, or gets labelled as having "fallen for Russian misinformation"

NBC was willing to talk about it a few years ago:

In another ominous development, Ukraine has in recent years erected a glut of statues honoring Ukrainian nationalists whose legacies are tainted by their indisputable record as Nazi proxies. The Forward newspaper cataloged some of these deplorables, including Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose followers acted as local militia members for the SS and German army. “Ukraine has several dozen monuments and scores of street names glorifying this Nazi collaborator, enough to require two separate Wikipedia pages,” the Forward wrote.

Just as disturbing, neo-Nazis are part of some of Ukraine’s growing ranks of volunteer battalions. They are battle-hardened after waging some of the toughest street fighting against Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine following Putin’s Crimean invasion in 2014. One is the Azov Battalion, founded by an avowed white supremacist who claimed Ukraine’s national purpose was to rid the country of Jews and other inferior races. In 2018, the U.S. Congress stipulated that its aid to Ukraine couldn’t be used “to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.” Even so, Azov is now an official member of the Ukraine National Guard.

ValeriyK2022 said:

As for LGBT people, they themselves are now dishonestly, through European organizations, putting pressure on our President and Parliament to violate the Constitution (according to the Constitution of Ukraine, marriage is the union of a man and a woman).

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ValeriyK2022 said:

Orthodox residents of Ukraine need legal assistance from international lawyers. We, Ukraine, have a very good constitution. But now there is a situation where efforts are needed to ensure that it is carried out. According to the Constitution, we have equality on national, religious and other grounds.

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ValeriyK2022 said:

The far right is supported by less than 3% of the Ukrainian population and they have money. The Constitution of Ukraine is supported by more than 97% of the population and they do not have the money to protect their rights from an aggressive minority. Why?

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Do you not see the contradiction in what you just said here?

While "LGBT movement" casts a wide net ranging from "workplace protections for gay people" all the way to "biological males should be allowed to compete on female teams"... Based on what you're saying, Ukraine is pretty far on the right-wing of the spectrum in that regard.

While there's squabbling over the more extreme things here, with regards to gay marriage, even our US Republican party (who get labelled as far-right here by some) is largely okay with gay marriage at this point


From what you're describing, Ukraine is to the right of US republicans on social issues.

So making the claim that what you consider to be "the far right" is only 3%, and everyone else is to the ideological right of US republicans? That still doesn't seem like a case where I'd expect US progressives to be slapping Ukrainian flag bumper stickers on the backs of their cars.

Perhaps the reason why Ukraine is capitulating to some of the demands of the LGBT community is precisely because that's the only way to get certain levels of support from western democracies. Did you honestly think progressives in westernized countries were going to get on board with unconditional Ukrainian support if Ukraine wasn't at least making some effort to update their stances on certain issues so that they weren't in-line with where US republicans were back in 1996?

ValeriyK2022 said:

If the Constitution of Ukraine is implemented, then life in Ukraine will be good for everyone except for the above categories (homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners).
If the Constitution of Ukraine is not implemented, then it will be good for some representatives of these categories, but it will be bad for all the other 98% of the population.

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ValeriyK2022 said:

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is supported by 5-7 million people. The ultranationalists from C14 are supported by only about 150 thousand. But the presence of ultranationalists on commercial television channels, other media, YouTube, and other Internet resources is tens (if not hundreds) times greater than representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Where do they get so much money if less than 3% of Ukrainians support them?

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But again, these combined statements aren't making a good case for the point you're trying to make (which was the claim that only 3% of the people are "far right", and the other 97% are just good Ukrainian constitutionalists), when you go onto to say things like "if we uphold our constitution, it'll be good for everyone except homosexuals and "sodomites"".

I understand the Overton Window is different between Ukraine and Westernized Democracies. But you have to understand that your sentiment about such matters isn't going to be able to yield a continuing support from Westernized progressives that it's currently getting it. To a good chunk of the American people, a statement like "we need to implement this constitution because it'll be good for everyone but the gays" IS a "far-right position".

As it currently stands (from a US perspective), it's the US Democrats who have a higher level of support for us intervening. How long would you expect that to last once they come to the realization that, based on what you're describing, the majority of Ukrainians (considered to be the 'non-extreme' cohort by Ukrainian standards) are to the ideological right of US Republicans?


To put it in more succinctly, the talking point of "Only 3% are bona fide neo nazis, the other 97% are just every day people with views on gender and LGBT issues that are to the right of US Republicans, that's why you need to keep sending us money and weapons" isn't an argument with a long shelf life.

I'd go even further and suggest that the mere notion that the word "sodomite" is casually tossed around to refer to gay people would be an instant turn-off for a good chunk of the US political party that are currently the die-hard Ukraine funding supporters.

ValeriyK2022 said:

Who funds the people who undermine our Constitution? Russia? Then why aren't our allies blocking this? Why don’t they introduce appropriate sanctions so that at least during the war they do not violate human rights, do not split society along religious lines and do not violate the Constitution of Ukraine with their actions?

Where is the main weapon we were all counting on: sanctions? What does it mean that Russia can continue the war for a long time? What will you do when they start funding extremists in the USA and splitting society along some lines?

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In order for sanctions to have "teeth", there's a couple things that need to be true in order for that to have the desired effect.

A) The would-be "sanction-ers" would need to have zero-dependencies on anything that country provides (or have a plan for satisfying that dependency with another country)

B) The target of the sanctions would need to have no other allies, and no other pathways to acquisition of whatever it is we're trying to block.


How that shakes out in a practical sense? You can't have countries still needing Russian oil/natural gas while simultaneously trying to sanction them on other sectors. ...and 20 or so countries cutting Russia off isn't really having a deep meaningful impact if there's still a half-dozen other countries still willing to do business with them.

To correct A, you'd have to get progressive allies in the US to abandon their climate initiatives and open up more drilling in order to be able to sell it to the EU so they don't have to buy from Russia.

To correct B, you'd have to talk every other country in the world out of commerce with them (and that's going to be a near-impossible sell on the China front)