Imagine, for a moment, if the grandchild of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the president of a country in Africa (let's say Nigeria). Imagine also, that a pair of Ku Klux Klansmen organized a PMC called "Kipling Group," which they named in honor of the author favored by so many White Supremacist organizations. Imagine further, that this PMC was ordered by some European nation or other to invade Nigeria, assassinate the president (who, I remind you, is MLK's grandchild in this scenario) as part of a "Special Military Operation" to liberate Nigeria from alleged "White Supremacists." If you can imagine the absurdity of this, then you're beginning to grasp the parrallel-universe level of baffling hypocrisy in Russia's "Special Military Operation," wherein they are sending self-professed Neo-Nazi units to "De-Nazify" Ukraine.
Vladimir Voldemortovich Putana's moronic myth of Ukraine being a "Nazi State" is not just a lie, it's an outdated lie. He couldn't even conjure up a fresh one. The "Ukraine = Nazis" myth has been the Kremlin's go-to justification for their barbarism in Ukraine since Josef Stalin first established the narrative in 1939 (Applebaum, p. 344). But this article isn't going to be spent debunking the myth of so-called "Ukro-Nazis." Why? Because this one already did. No, having already proven Ukraine is not a Nazi haven, I'm now going to follow that up with proof that Russia is.
First of All, Wagner Group
"There's no way around it, not even with Russian levels of doublethink. Wagner Group is a Neo-Nazi cell, and Russia specifically cultivated it to be that way."
Wagner Group, a PMC that is most simply (though somewhat imprecisely) described as "Russia's counterpart to Blackwater," originated in 2014 as a way for Russia to maintain plausible deniability in their invasion and subsequent illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Russia's state apparatus has tried, until recently, to keep some operational distance from Wagner, at least on paper if not in practice. However, with Wagner using Russian bases, being guarded by Russian troops, and sharing the same facilities with the Russian Army to the point where there is often not even a clear line between the PMC and the Russian military, there's no denying that Wagner is Russian-state-controlled (Center for Strategic and International studies).
Though there is currently some debate on whether its original founder was Yevgeni Prigozhin or Dmitry Utkin (Sauer), most sources before Summer 2022 list Dmitry Utkin as the actual founder. The presently accepted theory is that Utkin, who was a former Spesnatz officer, was the military commander who got actual results (well, who sometimes got actual results) while Prigozhin was simply the financier (Bell). Notwithstanding this debate over the specifics, Dmitry Utkin had some key role to play in the establishment of Wagner Group.
Why is that important? Well first of all, here's Dmitry Utkin.
The man has Waffen SS uniform insignia tattooed right onto himself. As a former Corrections Officer (that's по Политикал-коректскии for 'Prison Guard'), I've seen this before on a number of inmates in US prisons. It's used by neo-Nazis (especially the so-called 'Aryan Brotherhood'). To quote a death row inmate in Louisiana who had the same tattoos, "this way I'm never out of uniform. Not even in a strip search, not even in a fucking morgue." In other words, it's a level of neo-Nazi fanaticism that not even the original Nazis reached. The Dossier Center, a Russian-language publication established by Russian citizens for the purpose of establishing rule-of-law in Russia has a lengthy file on Utkin's oft-professed, nigh-religious devotion to Nazi ideology (Korotkov).
Utkin's fondness for the Third Reich, coupled with his illusions of himself as a musician (much the way Hitler fancied himself an artist; hmmm...) can explain how Wagner Group got their name. In Utkin's Spesnatz days he used the callsign "Wagner," and the troops under his command, abandoning any references to military structure as part of the Kremlin's efforts to mask their military presence in Crimea and Donbas, were known merely as "Wagner's Group." He chose a composer's name because he fancied himself a "composer of the battlefield (the group sometimes refers to themselves as 'the Musicians'), and Wagner specifically because he was the favorite composer of Utkin's idol, Adolf Hitler (Bell).
What's even more damning is Wagner doesn't even deny any of this.
Yevgeni Prigozhin, when questioned about Utkin's Nazi tattoos, could have denied them and Russia's faithful sycophants all over the globe would have believed him. Yet he didn't. He confessed the tattoos were real. And his excuse was (get ready for this one) "“In order to defeat Nazism, you must try it on yourself. Dmitry Utkin is trying Nazism on for fuck’s sake." (Quinn).
This response makes it a bit ironic that one of Putin's first acts in the invasion of Ukraine was to send Utkin to "try Nazism on" through the attempted assassination of a Jew, namely, Ukrainian President Volodomoyr Zelensky (Lobel), back in March 2022 when it became obvious that Russia's predictions that Zelensky would flee and Ukrainians would welcome Russian troops with open arms proved laughable.
The Nazi symbolism in Wagner goes deeper than just the creepy views of one founding member though. In 2021, almost a year before Putin's so-called "De-Nazification operation" began in Ukraine, Lukas Andriukaitis of Lithuanian news outlet Res Publica published an eye-poppingly in-depth article (visible here) citing the Nazi insignia covering Wagner Group's uniforms and vehicles and Nazi protocols observed within their ranks. Among the upper echelons, the signature for official correspondence is "Heil Petrovich," referring to another of the group's founding members (Korotkov).
Wagner Group's most infamous unit, known as "Task Force Rusich," has publicly taken pride in their neo-Nazi reputation (Rondeaux, Deer & Dalton).
They are so public about their neo-Nazi ideology that even openly professed Russian propagandists such as Quora's Rozza (who is a likely candidate to be the subject of Episode 2 of The D.U.R.A. Files, and who has gone on record denying Wagner itself is a neo-Nazi group despite the tsunami of incontrovertible proof that they are) have admitted that this unit within Wagner is made of Neo-Nazis.
So, we have a unit founded by a self-professed Neo-Nazi, named for the Nazi Party's favorite composer, using Nazi symbols and Nazi salutations, conducting Nazi-style operations against a civilian population and being tasked with the attempted assassination of a Jewish president whose grandfather fought Nazis, with openly stated declaration that they consider this assassination to be (and I quote) "revenge against that filthy Jew." There's no way around it, not even with Russian levels of doublethink. Wagner Group is a Neo-Nazi cell, and Russia specifically cultivated it to be that way.
Not Just Wagner Either
"Here, we can see the moment of fertilization when Nazi Anti-Semitism met Russian exceptionalism to form the unique brand of Neo-Nazism that has formed the backbone of Russian rhetoric from then until now... Discontent with the ruling Communist (Bolshevik) Party, belief in a 'Master Race' (no longer Teutonic but now Slavic), and bitterness against the amorphous amalgam of "The West" and... "Zionists" had all found an ideological home."
Know then, O pious Tsar, that… Thou art the only Tsar of the Christians in all the universe… all Christian Empires have converged in thy single one… two Romes have fallen but the third [Muscovy] stands, and no fourth can ever be. The Christian Empire [The Russian Tsardom] shall fall to no one.
Philotheus, Orthodox Monk, 1510; quoted by David Satter for Foreign Policy Research Institute
Russia's history of Neo-Nazism, ironically enough, goes back to shortly after the Nazi invasion of Russia. Disciples of the late Adolf Hitler began appearing in Russia in the 1950's, according to Russian sources (Charny). While some of these early neo-Nazis were merely fans of the hyper-militant aesthetic of the Nazis (it's easy to spot the Soviet fondness for mirror-sheen jackboots, Sam Browne belts and Nordic suit collars), most were actual devotees who found that Hitler's "master race" mentality dovetailed nicely with Russia's long-standing belief that the Russian People had a "Divine Mission" to subjugate the world (cited earlier by Philotheus). They simply expanded the definition of "Aryan" to include "anyone White who has beef with Washington."
By 1970, this recurring theme of Russian exceptionalism had intertwined with Russian Orthodoxy (a surprising combination to be sure, given the USSR's Atheist stance) to form a belief in the "moral superiority" of Russia over the supposedly decadent and degenerate West. This attitude was encapsulated by the author A. M. Ivanov in a pamphlet entitled Word of the Nation. This pamphlet, which read like a mix of Mein Kampf and basically any speech Vladimir Putin has ever given, was riddled with complaints against what the author called "infringement of the rights of the Russian people," including a "Jewish monopoly in science and culture". It also decried the so-called "biological degeneration of the white race," and called for "real Russians by blood and spirit" to rise up and take over first Russia, then the entire USSR, then the world. An expanded version, released later in 1981, referred to the US as "a tool to achieve world black supremacy" and reiterated the longstanding chorus of Russia's 'special mission to save world civilization.'
Today the spirit of Evil, having disguised its horns under a Beatles Haircut,is trying to conduct its demoralizing and disintegrative activity within individual branches of the Christian Church by other means, preaching the ideology of the Jewish diaspora, egalitarianism, and cosmopolitanism, thus aggravating the process of worldwide miscegenation and degradation.
Quoted in Neumann, p. 128, emphasis mine.
It's easy to pick out several recurring themes here that are common in Russian rhetoric today, including the lamentations about Western moral decay (Sewell) and the shadowy whispers of some phantom 'New World Order,' built on Leftist wet-dreams and led by some ill-defined double-helix of the supposedly "US-led West" and that go-to Antisemitic catch-all of "Zionist Oligarchs (Elez)." In fact, it is at this point where we can see the moment of fertilization when Nazi Anti-Semitism met Russian exceptionalism to form the unique brand of Neo-Nazism that has formed the backbone of Russian rhetoric from then until now. Much like Arnim Zola's revelation about "Hydra" in Marvel's movies, this Neo-Nazi ideology was incubated inside one of the very nations who claimed credit for the defeat of its predecessor.
When anti-Communist dissidents got their hands on the Nazi idea that Bolshevism was an evil plot by Jews, the formula of a new the New Russian Far-Right, manifested in the 1971 pamphlet Letter to Solzhenyitsin, was complete. Discontent with the ruling Communist (Bolshevik) Party, belief in a 'Master Race' (no longer Teutonic but now Slavic) on some sort of Sacred Mission to save civilization, and bitterness against the amorphous amalgam of "The West" and "Zionists (Andjelkovic; Rekas; Krupey)," had all found an ideological home. By the 1990's, the Russian Far Right was open about their admiration for Adolf Hitler's Party (Charny).
Emerging from the shadow of the USSR (and trying desperately to pretend they had not been the villains behind it) into a world led by the nation they'd sought to destroy a few short years before, Russia found this tripod of anti-Communism, bitterness at the West, and a desire to restore the "Greatness" of "Mother Russia" to be a comfortable fit for the geopolitical tides of the 1990's and early 2000's. And of course, who rode this tide of "Russian Exceptionalism" mixed with anti-Western bitterness to power? Why, none other than Vladimir Putin. It's therefore no surprise that he has cultivated it since then, repeatedly emphasizing his belief in Russia's unique status as a "State Civilization" destined for superiority over others (Aron).
And cultivate it he has.
And so today, there are Russian citizens openly embracing Nazism even in the midst of a so-called "De-Nazification campaign (Erve; Hudnall)." Kremlin officials whose job is to abduct "re-settle" Ukrainian children who were orphaned by Russia's illegal war, have been caught red-handed in business with Neo-Nazi cells that specialize in Human Trafficking (Zverev). Neo-Nazis from Germany are being sent to Russia for training from their parent-groups (Pfiefer). And amid it all, Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov (am I the only one who has to struggle not to pronounce his name as "Sir Gay Lapdog?"), managed to put an entire nation's foot in his own mouth when he put his Nazi-style Antisemitism on display by saying (brace yourself for this one) that his hatred of "Ukrainian Nazis" stemmed from the fact that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky (who, I remind the reader, is the Jewish grandson of a soldier who fought the Nazis) had the same, and I quote, "blood ties to Israel," that Hitler did (Horovitz).
If I was creative enough to make up a scenario like that, I'd have a bestseller in the "Alternate Universe Sci-Fi" sub-genre.
So, with Russia's absolute immersion in Nazism no longer within reach of reasonable doubt, what can we say about those around the world who have stood up to support Russia?
By this point in the article, the answer should be rather predictable.
How The Hell Did Anyone "Nazi" This Before?
"[A] quick hour of research proves these faithful Russophiles aren't "Leftie-no-like-so-they-get-called-fascists" Nazis. No, they're actual, straight-arm-saluting, "Zeig-Heil"-ing, genuine Nazis. Not even Neo-Nazis like Wagner Group. Nazis. As simple as that."
As Europe, Australia, and North America took the lead in standing up for Ukraine, it became common for fringe opposition elements within those countries to speak up in favor of Russia. One of the first examples to draw attention after the invasion (because in fact it predates the invasion but didn't go viral until afterward (Reuters Fact Check)) was in Slovakia. When a Ukrainian delegation spoke before the Slovak Parliament, two MP's opened a Slovak flag behind it and threw water all over the flag displayed by the guests and then assaulted one of them. Russian media outlet Russia Today, whose writers are anonymous so they won't have to live with the shame of having their names connected to the laughable drivel they write, was quick to capitalize on this, though they claimed it was the LSNS's objections to some "controversial defense treaty with the US."
If anyone can explain the train of thought from "me see Ukrainian flag, me no like US, me fling water on Ukraine flag like monkey and slap foreign diplomat," kindly explain it to me, but I guess it makes sense in the mind of Homo Russicus. Lavern Spicer, who I'm sorry to say is a US Republican (a fact which comes closer to making me consider voting Democrat than anything has since 2004) echoed Russia's praise of these two Slovak lawmakers on Twitter, saying "this is what Patriotism looks like."
https://twitter.com/lavern_spicer/status/1606250633538899970
- lavern_spicer
Well, there's one small detail worth mentioning. I mean, other than the obvious fact that it's a pathetic breach of even the most basic diplomatic decorum and, frankly, became a crime the moment the slap was thrown. The two Slovak MP's who defiled the visiting flag and then assaulted the diplomatic delegation, whose names were Andrei Medvecky and Peter Krupa, were members of the People's Party Our Slovakia (Slovak: Ľudová strana naše Slovensko, ĽSNS), which is an unabashed Neo-Nazi Party.
And before any of my readers on the Right ask, yes, I am very well aware how casually the accusation of "BLARGH! FASCISTS!!" is thrown around, especially in Europe, against anything even remotely Right of Center. However, a quick hour of research proves these faithful Russophiles aren't "Leftie-no-like-so-they-get-called-fascists" Nazis.
No, they're actual, straight-arm-saluting, "Zeig-Heil"-ing, genuine Nazis.
Not even Neo-Nazis like Wagner Group.
Nazis.
As simple as that.
First of all, their founder was arrested for participating in Nazi rallies complete with swastikas and Nazi slogans (Hudec), and there's a video of him shouting "Heil Hitler" in a session of Parliament back in the '90's (Colborne). More importantly than all the mindless theatrics though, this Party claims to derive its origin from the legacy of Andrej Hlinka and Jozef Tiso. The latter of those was the founder of the so-called "First Slovak Republic," a client state of Nazi Germany. Oh, and incidentally...
Anyway, yes. These people, a Party of open and active Nazis, claiming direct descent from a Nazi-made, Hitler-approved Wermacht client-state, are the ones jeering Ukraine, much to the delight of their brethren in Russia...
...And of Lavern Spicer.
But Russia's Nazi supporters are not confined to Europe.
In Sydney, Australia, there was a demonstration (not large enough to matter demographically or electorally, but large enough to be a nuisance) of Russophiles who gathered to celebrate Wagner Group's slaughter of the civilian population of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut (Southwell). Most of the demonstrators dispersed before the cops could arrive, which was odd. After all, complete absence of tact, class or moral sense notwithstanding, vocal support of inhuman crimes is, whether we like it or not, protected by Free Speech laws.
Well, it turned out later that they left because they didn't want anyone ID-ing them, because the six loudest of them had long, LONG-running affiliations with Neo-Nazism. And since it's getting late and I've been working on this article for nearly a week, forgive me for not adding these to the Works Cited section but I'm going to just let the tweets speak for themselves.
EDIT: Odd... The URL for these posts was https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1653307680243736577
, but as I was posting them to the article they became inaccessible. I was last able to access them at 01:18 AM US Central Time on 11 September. By 01:23 AM, they were showing 'Error 404' messages.
FURTHER EDIT, 15 Sep, 2023, 20:53 US Central Time: Now it appears they are working.
So, Let's Recap
It was established in an earlier article that Russia has used the mythical correlation between Ukrainian Independence and Nazism as an excuse for repression against Ukraine.
It was established in this article that the spearhead of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, Wagner Group, is a Neo-Nazi organization.
It has been established that modern Russia is saturated with Nazi ideology, and has been for decades.
It has been established that Russia's support from various corners of the globe is coming from Nazis and Neo-Nazis.
...I don't see what's left to debate here.
Works Cited
Andriukaitis, Lukas. "Neo-Nazism among Russian mercenaries." Res Publica. 26 March, 2021. Web. 9 Sep, 2023. https://www.respublica.lt/neonacizmas-rusijos-samdiniu-tarpe
Andjelkovic, Bobana. "THE QUDS DAY IN THE TIME OF ZIONIST INSANITY." Geopolitika.ru. 7 May, 2021. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/quds-day-time-zionist-insanity
Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine - Stalin's War on Ukraine. London, 2017. Penguin Books.
ISBN 978-0-141-97828-4
Aron, Leon. "Why Putin Says Russia Is Exceptional." Wall Street Journal. 30 May, 2014. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-putin-says-russia-is-exceptional-1401473667
Bell, Stewart. "In Prigozhin’s shadow, the Wagner Group leader who stays out of the spotlight." Global News. 29 June, 2023. Web. 7 Sep, 2023. https://globalnews.ca/news/9801903/prigozhin-wagner-group-leader-dmitry-utkin/
Center for Strategic and Informational studies Staff. "Band of Brothers: The Wagner Group and the Russian State." CSIS. 21 Sep, 2020. Web. 9 Sep, 2023. https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/band-brothers-wagner-group-and-russian-state
Charny, Semyon. "Nazi groups in the USSR in the 1950s - 1980s." Emergency Reserve. No. 5, 2004. Accessed from https://magazines.gorky.media/nz/2004/5/naczistskie-gruppy-v-sssr-v-1950-1980-e-gody.html , 10 Sep, 2023.
Colborne, Michael. "Marian Kotleba Wants to Make Slovakia Fascist Again." Foreign Policy. 28 Feb, 2022. Web. 11 Sep, 2023. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/28/marian-kotleba-slovakia-election-right-wing-fascism/
Elez, Bogdan. "RUSSIAN NATIONALISM AND THE WAR IN UKRAINE." Geopolitika.ru. 8 May, 2016. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.geopolitika.ru/sr/article/ruski-nacionalizam-i-rat-u-ukrajini
Erve, Gleb. "Russian State Media War Reporter Defends Nazi Tattoos." The Moscow Times. 1 June, 2022. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/01/russian-state-media-war-reporter-defends-nazi-tattoos-a77860
Horowitz, Micheal. "Russia says Zelensky heads ‘Nazi regime’ with ‘blood ties to Israel’." The Times of Israel. 22 May, 2023. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-says-zelensky-heads-nazi-regime-with-blood-ties-to-israel/
Hudnall, Hannah. "Fact check: Images show Russian citizen with swastika tattoo, not Ukrainian soldier." USA Today. 8 Dec, 2022. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/12/08/fact-check-man-pictured-swastika-tattoo-russian-not-ukranian/10838038002/
Hudec, Michael. "Head of Slovak far-right party sentenced for using Nazi symbolism." Euractiv. 6 Apr, 2022. Web. 11 Sep, 2023. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/head-of-slovak-far-right-party-sentenced-for-using-nazi-symbolism/
Lobel, Oved. "Russia sends its pet neo-Nazis to kill Zelensky – while claiming to want to “denazify” Ukraine." Fresh Air. Australia / Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. 2 MAr, 2022. Web. 9 Sep, 2023. https://aijac.org.au/fresh-air/russia-sends-its-pet-neo-nazis-to-kill-zelensky-while-claiming-to-want-to-denazify-ukraine/
Korotkov, Denis. "'Heil Petrovich' - The story of Dmitry Utkin - the man who gave the Wagner group its name." The Dossier Center. 10 Apr, 2023. Web. 9 Sep, 2023. https://dossier.center/utkin/
Krupey, Gregory. "THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT, ZIONISM AND THE COMING OF THE PENTEHOLOCAUST." Geopolitika.ru. 16 May, 2018. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/christian-right-zionism-and-coming-penteholocaust
Neumann, Iver. Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations. London, 2016. Taylor and Francis.
ISBN 978-1138-182-615
Pfeifer, Hans. "Why are German neo-Nazis training in Russia?" DW. 6 June, 2020. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-german-neo-nazis-training-in-russia/a-53702613
Quinn, Allison. "Wagner Boss Cites Penis Tattoo in Colleague’s Nazism Scandal." The Daily Beast. 11 Apr, 2023. Web. 9 Sep, 2023. https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagner-boss-yevgeny-prigozhin-cites-penis-tattoo-in-alleged-colleagues-nazism-scandal
Rekas, Konrad. "ZIONIST AGGRESSION AGAINST EUROPEAN NATIONS." Geopolitika.ru. 22 Feb, 2018. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/zionist-aggression-against-european-nations
Reuters Fact Check. "Fact Check-Video of opposition Slovak lawmakers pouring water on Ukrainian flag predates Russian invasion." Reuters. 25 Mar, 2022. Web. 11 Sep, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-slovakia-ukraineflag/fact-check-video-of-opposition-slovak-lawmakers-pouring-water-on-ukrainian-flag-predates-russian-invasion-idUSL2N2VS2H3
Rondeaux, Candace; Deer, Jonathan & Dalton, Ben. "One of the most notorious battalions of the secretive and deadly Wagner Group appeared to suggest it was prepping to return to Ukraine, raising the prospect of a Russian assault.." The Daily Beast. 26 Jan, 2022. Web. 9 Sep, 2023. https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagners-rusich-neo-nazi-attack-unit-hints-its-going-back-into-ukraine-undercover
Russia Today Staff. "WATCH: Parliamentarians fight over Ukrainian flag." RT. 9 Feb, 2022. Web. 11 Sep, 2023. https://www.rt.com/russia/548725-ukraine-flag-slovakia-parliament/
Satter, David. "The Curse of Russian 'Exceptionalism.'" *Foreign Policy Research Institute. 2 Oct, 2013. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.fpri.org/article/2013/10/the-curse-of-russian-exceptionalism/
Sauer, Pjotr. "Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin admits founding Wagner mercenary group." The Guardian. 26 Sep, 2022. Web. 7 Sep, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/26/putin-ally-yevgeny-prigozhin-admits-founding-wagner-mercenary-group
Sewell, Gilbert. "Putin understands America’s moral decay." The Spectator. 2 Mar, 2022. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://thespectator.com/topic/putin-understands-american-moral-decay/
Southwell, David. "Pro-Russia party is held in Sydney where attendees are pictured celebrating the bloody downfall of Ukraine city." Daily Mail. 25 May, 2023. Web. 11 Sep, 2023. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12122413/Vile-pro-Russia-party-held-Sydney.html
Spicer, Lavern. Username @Lavern_spicer. "That’s what patriotism looks like!" Twitter. 5:29 AM. 23 Dec, 2022. Accessed 11 Sep, 2023 from
Zverev, Anton. "Exclusive: Kremlin aide who brings Ukrainian children to Russia associated online with neo-Nazism." Reuters. 9 Aug, 2023. Web. 10 Sep, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-aide-who-brings-ukrainian-children-russia-associated-online-with-neo-2023-08-09/