After 82 days of siege, the Azovstal steelworks (Mariupol, Ukraine) was liberated from the Russian siege. It was May 2022, a few days after Eurovision and a young man celebrated the liberation by posting a video in which he sang ‘Stefania’ at the top of his lungs, the song that made Ukraine win the contest. This young man is Orest, a pseudonym by which Dmitro Kozatsky is known, who has become famous for his snapshots, in which he often shows the resistance of the Ukrainian soldiers. Snapshots that, almost always, are of members of the ultra-nationalist Azov battalion.
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Some of these photographs are the ones that made up the exhibition ‘Volya Libertad’, which the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) hosted in the Gabriel Ferrater library in Barcelona. This exhibition, which began on October 13 and was to end next Friday, has been canceled this Sunday morning due to the “ideology of the person who signs it [las fotografías]said this morning the UPC in a statementin which he also highlighted that “he radically rejects Nazism and regrets the situation created”.
sieg heil pic.twitter.com/YKu38WUIMj
— Alien (@xdan7e) November 13, 2022
The cancellation of the exhibition occurred after various people recovered a post on Twitter in which the UPC celebrated its 50th anniversary in June to comment on “Sieg Heil, the Nazis”.
These publications were accompanied by various photographs taken from Kozatsky’s Twitter profile in which he is shown decorating a plate with a swastika or wearing a t-shirt with the Ukrainian shield and the numbers related to the Nazi symbology 14 (the 14 words of the racist leader David Lane) and 88 (referring to the eighth letter of the alphabet, i.e. H – H, related to the Nazi salute ‘Heil Hitler’).
Once they have seen these publications, the UPC has decided to cancel the exhibition. We totally reject this ideology. It’s a shame and it’s a shame that we had to find out like this“, sources from the University told elDiario.es. Likewise, they explain that “the ideology” of Kazotsky was unknown.
Привітав KALUSH ORCHESTRA з перемогою на Євробаченні з самого серця Маріуполя pic.twitter.com/Wj8f4qDNaU
— Орест (@Kozatsky_D) May 15, 2022
According to the UPC, the exhibition was proposed by the Neighborhood Association of the University Zone, to whom they “often” give the Gabriel Ferrater library. “We trust them and let them do their thing”, they respond from the UPC, although they also recognize that “in times of war, we have to be especially careful”. For its part, the Neighborhood Association has not responded to questions from this medium.
Dmitro Kazotsky, who has worked with news agencies such as AFP, has in his Twitter biography the link to the ultra-nationalist Azov battalion and various publications showing support for this unit of the Ukrainian National Guard of which at least 500 members have been accused. of war crimes.
www.eldiario.es