Russian Soldiers Celebrate Hitler's Birthday, Call Dictator 'Comrade And Friend'

KEY POINTS

Russian mercenaries in Ukraine supposedly celebrated Adolf Hitler's 133rd birthday Thursday
The late Nazi dictator was a "comrade" who taught us how to "love our motherland," one claimed
A photo uploaded by the mercenary included the known pro-war "Z" symbol and a white supremacist code

Russian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine allegedly celebrated the birthday of the late Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Yevgeny Rasskazov, a member of the Russian mercenary group Task Force Rusich, made a post on his Telegram account Thursday to celebrate the birthday of Hitler, Belarusian media outlet NEXTA reported.

The day would have marked the 133rd birthday of the late German head of state, referred as a "comrade" and "friend" by Rasskazov, as per a machine translation of his post.

"[Hitler] taught us to love our homeland and never be afraid of the enemy, no matter how strong the enemy is," said the mercenary, whose neo-Nazi group is known for its brutality in the Syrian Civil War.

The Nazi dictator also "taught us to fight for the ancestral lands that historically belong to our people," Rasskazov added.

"[D]espite the fact that he is no longer with us, his work and word lives in our hearts and inspires us to beat the Bolshevik scum and multiply the glory of great Russia," read his post, which also included a photo of two armed men posing in front of a truck with a boxed Z painted on its front.

The symbol was seen painted on some Russian military vehicles in the invasion of Ukraine alongside a version that lacked the square. The latter has since become a symbol associated with Russia's pro-war movement.

In addition to the Z symbol, the truck featured on Rasskazov’s post, which has received more than 1,600 varying reactions on Telegram, also had the number 88 painted on its window — a white supremacist numerical code for the Nazi phrase "Heil Hitler," according to The Times.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 to "denazify" its neighbor, but the current Ukrainian government is not a fascist dictatorship. Neither is it in any way associated with the Nazis.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who won 73% of the votes in Ukraine's democratic elections in 2019, is a Jew.

Zelensky's grandfather even fought in the Soviet Army against the Nazis, and the Ukrainian president's family lost relatives in the Holocaust, the Nazi state-sponsored genocide that killed six million Jewish men, women and children during World War II.

"This is how denazification of Ukraine looks like," NEXTA said on Twitter in response to Rasskazov's post.