Reuters presents as a simple “inhabitant” of Kharkov a man tattooed with a swastika – RT in French

In an article on the situation in Ukraine, the news agency released several photographs illustrating the consequences of the fighting on the population. One of them shows, without comment, a “inhabitant” of Kharkov tattooed with a swastika.

In an article in English titled “Russia pushes Ukrainian forces to outskirts of key eastern city(“Russia repels Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of a key eastern town”) and published on June 8, the British agency Reuters released a photograph of an individual which it presents without further comment. as an “inhabitant” (“A local resident) from Kharkov, while the man sports a tattooed swastika on his arm.

Illustrating testimonies, the photograph in question is in a slideshow and is captioned as follows by Reuters: “A local resident inspects a damaged van following a military strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, at a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine June 8, 2022(“A resident inspects a van damaged in a strike, during Russia’s offensive against Ukraine, in a residential area of ​​Kharkiv, Ukraine, June 8, 2022”). We see an individual looking inside a damaged van. Under the sleeve of his T-shirt protrudes an imposing tattoo representing a swastika, as used by the Nazi regime in Germany until its fall.

If Reuters specifies in its article that it “could not independently verify the situation on the ground in Severodonetsk”, the photograph was however taken by one of its photoreporters, Ivan Alvarado.

The article also reports on the retreat of Ukrainian forces to the city of Severodonetsk, stressing that “this battle could help determine the course of the war”. He also reports the consequences of the conflict on the inhabitants, in particular in Sloviansk where “24,000 people remain in the city, in the path of an expected assault by Russian forces regrouping in the north”.

Launched on February 24, the Russian offensive aims in particular, according to Moscow, to protect the Russian-speaking populations of the Donbass that Vladimir Putin considered threatened with “genocide”. The Russian president also said that one of the objectives of this military operation was to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine. The Azov battalion, made up in particular of neo-Nazi elements, has been integrated into the regular Ukrainian army and is now supplied with arms by the West.