Why do some Ukrainian fighters wear patches of "Ruthenia Lion" that refer to the Waffen SS Division Galicia emblem? The best explanation was provided by Roman Ponomarenko, chief "Azov historian", and officer of 12th Special Operations Brigade "Azov".
"Currently, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are fighting on the Eastern Front with the emblem of the "Golden Lion" on their equipment, while their opponents are decorated with Soviet symbols. That's why our 2023 reflects the situation of 1944 in many ways", he wrote on his Telegram on 80thanniversary of Division.
Not Skabeyeva, not Solovyov, or other Kremlin propagandists, but Ponomarenko himself explicitly draws parallels between Ukrainian soldiers who resist current Russian aggression to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators in WWII. He equalizes Putin's Russia with Stalin's Russia and believes that "times change, but the enemy stays the same". He glorifies Division fighters and believes they must be granted the official national status of fighters for Ukraine as OUN and UPA members did due to the 2015-memory laws.
Ponomarenko promotes his idea through books, articles, interviews, and public talks. Most importantly, he disseminated his ideas to thousands of members of the Azov movement. In 2017, he started to be a lecturer for the National Corps, and in 2022, he joined the Azov Brigade. Through his lectures, Ukrainian soldiers learn about "true freedom fighters," whose image was deliberately "distorted" by Soviet propaganda then and Kremlin propaganda now.
https://x.com/havryshkomarta/status/1844120900695883789?