File Ukraine-Russia war Several netizens have accused the wife of a commander of the Azov regiment of being a neo-Nazi after she appeared on BFM TV because she resembled photos circulating on the internet. If these connections to the extreme right are not proven, then they are those of another guest on the channel. Question from Jean on May 16th
Hello,
Several netizens, including rapper Booba, accused the continuous news channel BFM TV of giving the floor to two Ukrainian women on May 13, who they mistook for neo-Nazi fighters. Kateryna Prokopenko and Julia Fedosiuk, invited to the set of the chain, are presented by the chain as the wives of the commander of the Azov regiment Denys Prokopenko and Arseny Fedosiuk, member of the Azov regiment, entrenched at the Azovstal factory in Mariupol. The Azov regiment, established by neo-Nazis in 2014, has been the subject of numerous articles demonstrating its ties to the far right. The two women have had significant media coverage since early May as they have held several international actions with wives of Azov regiment soldiers, including press conferences or meeting with Pope Francis on May 11 to warn about the situation of their husband in the Azov valley Factory.
On social networks, critics of the two BFM-TV guests shared photos and montages showing blonde women resembling Kateryna Prokopenko, posing with a flag or a tank top covered with a swastika, or performing the Hitler salute with other women. On the basis of these accusatory tweets, and without conducting any verification, Oh my Mag, a site acquired by news portal MSN, spread the controversy, accusing the young blonde woman of being a neo-Nazi.
Kateryna Prokopenko mixes up two neo-Nazi blondes
On reverse image search, none of these images appear to show Kateryna Prokopenko. The young woman also denied on Twitter that she was either of these two women, sharing the verification work of Italian fact-checkers. Several French verifiers have come to the same conclusions we share: the two photos showing a woman posing with swastikas show a Ukrainian named Victoria Zaverukha, whose ties to neo-Nazi ideology were exposed in 2014. The photo, of three women giving a Nazi salute, was circulating back in 2010 when Kateryna Prokopenko was 14 or 15, and appears to be from Poland, judging by the white and red flag on one of these women’s clothing and connection to one may Polish dating site where a higher resolution version of the image appears.
Kateryna Prokopenko, who was targeted by this disinformation campaign, told CheckNews: “It’s so sad that people can easily believe propaganda and false information. Some people just can’t analyze facial features or look for confirmation.” She tweeted the Italian fact check to several of her critics.
After examining the various public and private accounts that she uses on social networks, where she presents herself as a “patriot”, CheckNews found no compromising images or texts for the young woman, no swastika, no suspiciously outstretched arms. Her publications mainly revolve around her work as an illustrator, mostly depicting childish ibexes, photos of her sporting excursions and her travels through Europe, as well as her distinct taste for metal music and Viking imagery. When asked about her political position, Kateryna Prokopenko defines herself as a supporter of “the ideas of environmental protection, freedom of choice, freedom of expression. I am also for a modern and strong army (like Israel) where women can be equal with men, train and be prepared. And I’m a patriot who loves her history, her language, her culture, but I respect other cultures and nationalities. I respect all animals, so I don’t eat them. I am for a strong and healthy country with a strong army, good education, medical care, sports and culture. I am absolutely against totalitarianism (like Russia and Belarus). I am absolutely against new fascist tendencies like Ruschism [fascisme russe ; ndlr]”.
Julia Fedosiuk, new anti-feminist figure of the Ukrainian extreme right
It’s a little different with Julia Fedosiuk, the dark-haired woman who is by her side on the set of BFM TV. When she does not show Nazi symbols or symbols celebrating Nazism on her public social networks, where she is very active, this young woman of 29, who has a degree in philosophy, has been the subject of several mentions on Ukrainian websites or in academic texts that make it possible to locate her unequivocally in the extreme right of the Ukrainian political spectrum. She is best known for her anti-feminist actions, her defense of the carrying of guns and her opposition to abortion and LGBT rights.
In September 2017, she took part in a rally against the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, a text to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence, on the grounds that the convention uses the word “gender”. She is photographed with a sign that reads “Women dream of training”. In a blog post, feminist activist Anna Gritsenko points out that Julia Fedosiuk then appears alongside Eduard Yurchenko, a far-right ideologue who has worked in various far-right parties, including the National Corps Party, which brings together veterans and members of the Azov Battalion, and who founded the openly homophobic “Order” movement. In an interview she gave to Ukrainian media Babel in March 2020, she assumed that in 2014 she had voted for Dmytro Yarosh, the candidate of the far-right Right Sector party. Crossed by British reporter Aris Roussinos in 2019, she distances herself from American white supremacists’ interest in “race war” and says she is inspired by it ” Codreanu Movement” in reference to Corneliu Codreanu, a Romanian nationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-communist figure of the interwar period.
On March 8, 2020, she repeated a provocation by going to the women’s rights demonstration, where members of her anti-feminist collective “Srіblo Troyandi” (“Silver Roses” in English) arrived with a coffin to bury feminism all in black. She now rejects the label of anti-feminist, as she believes her collective is “a conservative women’s organization that offers an alternative to outdated ideas of nationalism, largely unresponsive to today’s challenges, and to the extreme forms of feminism in the third wave.
до Последнего думала что эти девушки ненском марше феминистки, но Потом уннала, шо они наоророт консервативн
dumala
вся эта красота… и для кого… pic.twitter.com/RKxOKf48u8
— влада холі (@murderbffs) March 11, 2020
An article by the Ukrainian far-right observatory Violence Marker, funded by the German left-wing Rosa-Luxemburg foundation, recalls that the collective “Srіblo Troyandi” counts among its members several female icons of the Ukrainian far-right, among which the most notable is Olena Semenyaka, who French specialist on the Ukrainian far-right Adrien Nonjon calls the “First Lady” of Ukrainian nationalism as she is “the female poster child of the Azov movement” and “has been the international secretary of the National Corps since 2018 (and has led de facto since the party’s founding in year 2016) and at the same time manages the publishing house and the metapolitical club Plomin (Flame)”. Julia Fedosiuk knows Plomin very well, as she is one of the volunteers. Olena Semenyaka’s propensity for neo-Nazism is documented, as we know of a photo of her giving the Nazi salute with a swastika flag.
Contacted by CheckNews, Julia Fedosiuk did not reply to our request.