Swedish Journo Axed After Article About Ukrainian Nazis, Praising RT as 'Quality Journalism'

After ten years with the left-wing newspaper Dagens ETC, prolific Swedish journalist Kajsa "Ekis" Ekman has now been fired after writing an article about Nazis in Ukraine.

In an opinion piece titled "Why are Kyiv Independent's Nazi connections accepted?", Ekman accused the Ukrainian newspaper of having Nazi connections. She also wrote that the publication was started with the help of money from the Canadian government, the European Endowment for Democracy, and that employees were sponsored with aid money from the US, as well as received grants from Swedish media organisations.

Furthermore, she took offence to the fact that "no one seems to react to Kyiv Independent's editorial office having Nazi connections", citing a friendship between the newspaper's defence reporter Illia Ponomarenko and the former artillery chief of the nationalist Azov battalion, which has avowed Nazis in its midst and heraldic insignia inspired by Nazi Germany.

The Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Independent was only founded in late December, but has millions of followers on social media and is frequently quoted by supportive Western media.

A large number of fellow left-wing journalists and opinion makers attacked Ekman, accusing her of spreading "Russian lies and propaganda". Among others, Expressen's Hynek Pallas accused Ekman of launching "vile attacks on Ukrainian journalists".

The left-wing magazine Expo, which previously lambasted the spread of right-wing extremism in Ukraine, earlier concluded that Ukrainian Nazism should be toned down amid the ongoing conflict, "so as not to play into the Russian lie factory".

Subsequently, Andreas Gustavsson, editor-in-chief of Dagens ETC, announced that Kajsa Ekman would no longer be allowed to write in the tax-financed newspaper. Gustavsson referred to it having emerged that Ekman wrote on Instagram that the Russian media channel RT had "very high-quality journalism".

"Kajsa 'Ekis' Ekman wrote on social media that Russia Today, RT, is something other than a propaganda centre. I cannot tolerate that", Gustavsson wrote.

Ekman later commented on the incident in an Instagram post.

"I have written for Dagens ETC for almost ten years. There have been around five hundred texts about everything from workplace accidents to why art should not be political. We have had a good rapport. We even made a book together. I have never been ill, delivered the texts on time no matter what happened in life, and no half-baked pieces but ready for publication. In the first years we did not even get a holiday, and holiday pay had to be fought for. As a freelancer, you have no contract, you work from home, you pay the costs yourself, salary SEK 9,000 [$945] a month before tax. Wonder how much they earned on one?", Ekman wrote.

Ukrainian nationalism emerged long before the colour revolution of 2014 known as Euromaidan. After the bloody coup, though, neo-Nazism became a part of the country's political system and armed forces, with units such as Azov brandishing Nazi insignia at will. Furthermore, radicals are free to organise marches and torchlight processions in honour of fascist war criminals and Nazi collaborators.

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In a recent speech, Vladimir Putin said that an armed standoff with the anti-Russian forces nurtured in Ukraine was inevitable, and that it was just a matter of time. Putin also stated that these forces had started to turn Ukraine into "an anti-Russian foothold", fostering "the seeds of nationalism and neo-Nazism that have existed for a long time there".

Russia launched its special operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine on 24 February after the newly recognised Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics appealed to Moscow for help amid increased attacks by the Ukrainian Army, following a gruelling eight-year-long conflict in the eastern part of the country.