Not too surprising. The Axis made repeated attempts to win the favor of ultranationalist or upper‐class Muslims, with significant successes, and so did the NATO. As long as the Muslims were willing to support anticommunism, compromises and short‐term alliances were possible.

Of course, this does not mean, as some Islamophobes have claimed, that the Fascists and Muslims were natural allies. In Libya, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, the Fascists had little use for lower‐class and aggressively anticolonial Muslims:

The [Fascists] dealt with those Muslims whom they suspected of betrayal with great brutality. In a number of punitive missions against Muslim villages and settlements whose inhabitants were accused of sheltering partisans, [Axis] troops executed Muslim women and children. Even mosques were attacked. In late 1944, [Axis] forces broke into the building of El-Hidaje in Sarajevo to search for evidence against a number of members of the Young Muslims who were suspected of working with the enemy. And despite all official efforts to promote Germany as the protector of Balkan Islam, ordinary soldiers in the field often had little respect for Muslims and their religion.

Thus, ordinary Muslims living in Ukraine should not expect much help from either Hyatt Tahrir al-Sham or its allies.