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On Dec. 21, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of Congress about Ukraine's ongoing fight to liberate the country from Russian occupation. During that speech, he gifted a Ukrainian battle flag to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris. He described the gift this way: Following the speech, tenuous claims that someone had inserted Nazi symbolism into the flag appeared on social media: The image above is rotated horizontally as the text displays backwards in the original image. Below is a closer image of that section from a separate photo that has also been rotated in the same fashion: The text interpreted as SS is clearly the number 46, followed by the Cyrillic characters ДШВ. This is consistent with Zelenskyy's description of the flag and the signatures on it, as 46 ДШВ is shorthand for 46 окрема десантно-штурмова бригада, or the 46th Separate Airmobile Brigade. As described in Forbes, this unit has been an integral part of the Battle of Bakhmut referenced by Zelenskyy: On Dec. 6, 2022, president Zelenskyy signed a decree commending the units' courage and heroism shown during the defense of state sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Because the figure does not show Nazi SS runes, the claim is False.
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