A top Nazi hunter and Holocaust scholar in Israel has accused Canada of not properly investigating the background of soldiers in Ukraine, and said the country failed by allowing Ukrainian military personnel connected to far-right groups to receive training, as recently as a year and a half ago.
The Canadian Forces have disagreed, saying they had “no obligation” to be certain of the background of soldiers trained.
New reports are coming out that the Canadian military personnel trained members of the far-right group the Azov regiment, and trained at least one Ukrainian soldier who had the crest of a Nazi SS unit from World War II. This training took place 17 months ago, in November 2020.
Efraim Zuroff, a scholar from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, said that Canada failed to monitor its own military training program and that the Canadian government, therefore, did not do its due diligence.
Zuroff said the defense ministry had a responsibility to know exactly who was being trained by their personnel.
Canadian Forces Capt. Veronique Sabourin said that Ukraine is responsible for vetting its own military personnel.
The Canadian military has denied that it trained members of the Azov unit. Sabourin said that there is “no burden of proof” on the Canadian military to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the trainees hold racist views or belong to right-wing organizations.
The Azov unit has connections to the far-right, says Zuroff, that have long been recognized. In 2017, Canada’s Joint Task Force Ukraine produced a briefing on the battalion, and acknowledge links to Nazis, saying that some members of the group described themselves as Nazis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made false claims to justify the invasion of Ukraine by saying that the country was led by Nazis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish.
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