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Kyiv's trident and a London hate-symbol guide
Summary
A retrospective on 21 January 2020, when Ukraine pressed British counter-terrorism police over the placement of its coat of arms in a guide to hate symbols.
What happens when a national emblem turns up in a police guide to extremist imagery? On 21 January 2020, Ukraine gave its answer: it demanded that the United Kingdom's National Counter Terrorism Policing Network remove the Tryzub, the country's coat of arms, from a guide on hate symbols associated with white supremacy and Neo-Nazism.
Counter Terrorism Policing defended the entry. It said the coat of arms had been included because National Action, a proscribed far-right terror group, used it.
The two positions did not overlap. Kyiv objected to the state symbol appearing in a catalogue of hate imagery. The British network pointed to the symbol's use by a banned group in the UK. The exchange became an item in Ukraine–United Kingdom relations.
A crowded week for Kyiv
The dispute came in a week of heavy news for Ukraine. On 17 January 2020, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation after an audio clip, in which he allegedly criticised President Volodymyr Zelensky's economic policies, was leaked earlier that week. Zelensky then announced that Honcharuk could keep his post.
The downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 also remained in the news. On 17 January, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave his first Friday sermon in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of the passengers and praised Operation Martyr Soleimani as a slap on the face to the United States. Public anger at the government's handling of the crash was mounting. The Guards had shot the aircraft down on 8 January 2020, and protests in Iran followed.
What the day showed
The 21 January demand was a diplomatic and reputational matter rather than a security one. Ukraine's government acted over how its emblem was presented abroad, while British police stood by their reasoning about National Action. Neither side's stated position changed on that date.
