A photo shows both President Zelenskyy of Ukraine and Adolf Hitler wearing the same symbol.
The two symbols are not the same. President Zelenskyy is wearing a t-shirt with the emblem of Ukraine’s armed forces. Hitler was wearing a military decoration called the iron cross.
An image shared on Instagram shows a picture of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Adolf Hitler. In the image, cross insignias on both of their chests are circled, appearing to imply that they are wearing the same symbol. But they aren’t.
The cross sign on President Zelenskyy’s shirt is the emblem of Ukraine’s armed forces and has been since 2009. There are many photos of him wearing the green t-shirt with the emblem.
The badge Hitler appears to be wearing in the photo in the post is the iron cross—a military decoration he was often photographed wearing. He was awarded two in the First World War: both the more common second class and a first class award.
Speaking about images of President Zelenskyy wearing the Ukraine military emblem, Yale University professor and European history scholar Timothy Snyder told AP: “This is not an Iron Cross of any kind.”
He added: “The use of a cross as part of a military insignium is not at all unusual.”
We’ve checked other false claims relating to images or videos of President Zelenskyy before, including false claims he has a body double and that he is not really in Ukraine.
It’s always worth checking whether content is real before you share it. We have written a guide on how to verify viral images which you can read here.
Image courtesy of Ukraine presidential office
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because President Zelenskyy is not wearing the same symbol as Hitler.
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