Profile: Who are Ukraine’s far-right Azov regiment?
www.aljazeera.com
The far-right neo-Nazi group has expanded to be part of Ukraine’s armed forces, a street militia and a political party.

Azov is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members – estimated at 900 – are ultra-nationalists and accused of harboring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.

The unit was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) group. Both groups engaged in xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideals and physically assaulted migrants, the Roma community and people opposing their views.

The unit received backing from Ukraine’s interior minister in 2014, as the government had recognised its own military was too weak to fight off the pro-Russian separatists and relied on paramilitary volunteer forces.

These forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the most known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governor of the Dnipropetrovska region.

Individual members have professed to being neo-Nazis, and hardcore far-right ultra-nationalism is pervasive among members.

In January 2018, Azov rolled out its street patrol unit called National Druzhyna to “restore” order in the capital, Kyiv. Instead, the unit carried out pogroms against the Roma community and attacked members of the LGBTQ community.

“Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces,” a correspondent for the US-based magazine, the Nation, wrote in 2019.

In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure from the Pentagon.

This is from Aljizeera, not a Russian propaganda mill, like the US media would like you to believe, and before the war, Azov was reported like this by even the mainstream West.

If you defend NATO actions in Ukraine, you’re disgusting. You support white supremacists that carried out pogroms against the Roma people and the LGBTQ. That’s a fact. I don’t care how bad modern Russia is, it’s not worth teaming up with these people to defeat them. NATO is just helping to create another ISIS for selfish reasons.

If you shit on the left and dishonestly accuse us of defending far-right capitalist Russia because we don’t want to support the whitewashing of literal Nazis then you can fuck right off. You are the bad guys in this far-right VS far-right war. You’re the ones dragging out the bloodshed for the economic interests of the West when what we really should be doing is trying to get peace as fast as possible.

    • Awoo [she/her]English
      34•9 months ago

      What is the point in this response? Do you think this magically changes the issue of the Ukrainian state being ideologically fascist? Yes nazis exist in Russia, but nazis are not steering the ship of state and that is blatantly clear when you investigate crackdowns against nazis within the country and how nazis are treated there.

      Who runs Ukraine though and what have they been doing for the last 9 years?

      They had a fascist coup in 2014, what followed was nazis being empowered throughout government and military offices. The merging of nazi brigades into the military officially, fascist policy, fascist education, the revision of history, the honouring of fascist historical figures as “heroes” (Stepan Bandera being the most well known of which), and none of this has changed since. Early on in the war they banned all political parties except for the existing ruling party and the fascist parties.

      This video contains some highlights of the last few years.

      If you don’t believe nazism is still in power in this government here is the Secretary of Defense saying that asians are not human only a few days ago.

      And if that’s not enough? Here is a major Ukrainian polling agency demonstrating the effect of nazis being in power in Ukraine. In 2012 support for Stepan Bandera was only 22%. Today, after the changes and promotion of his fascist beliefs, the lionisation of him and the remaking of Ukraine into an ultranationalist nation, that support is now 74%. Quote:

      In particular, the attitudes that gradually improved are the ones towards Ivan Mazepa (44% in 2012 and 76% in 2022), Simon Petliura (26% in 2012 and 49% in 2022) and Stepan Bandera (22% in 2012 and 74% in 2022).

      Stepan Bandera was leader of the OUN, which killed tens of thousands of jews during the holocaust and was regarded by the Nazi SS as extreme and particularly brutal even by their standards. What you MUST understand about this shift in perception is that this is like making Hitler popular in Germany again by remaking the education system, changing how you promote him and creating/promoting glorious stories of him as an important figure and hero of modern Germany. This shift has been led by fascists throughout government who are categorically not good people.

    • SimulatedLiberalism [none/use name]English
      25•9 months ago

      Actually this is a good place to talk about neoliberalism.

      There were actually tons of neo-Nazis in Russia in the 1990s, it was completely wild back then. It was dangerous then even to take the Moscow Metro (one of the safest cities in the world during the Soviet times), especially if you’re not white you could be attacked by the neo-Nazi gangs. I know this from a friend’s father who was an African exchange student back then. This is what a failed state ruined by neoliberalism and Western imperialism looked like.

      Putin came in and threw almost all of them into jail and restored order. Nazism and National Bolshevik Party were made illegal and explicitly cracked down on, not because he’s a socialist or a communist but because he’s a liberal.

      Well, turns out that people prefer to not live in a failed state where your everyday lives is like living in a war zone. This is also why despite lots of criticism against Putin (and trust me there are a lot - 62% of Russians want to nationalize the economy), people are still afraid that any radical changes will turn the country back to the poverty era of the 1990s. It is simply too painful to even think about. This is what neoliberalism did to a country.

      • jackmarxist [any]English
        12•9 months ago

        Western Interference in the USSR and later the ex-USSR is the reason putin is in power with huge support.

        Had the west actually treated Russia as an equal after 1991, didn’t have Yeltsin lead a coup against the Parliament, didn’t rig the elections to stop the Communist Party from being elected and didn’t steal as much wealth as they could from a ruined Russia, putin would not be in power right now.