It's not just Azov (Part 1)
It has been almost a year since the “invasion” of Ukraine began. Of course, it actually started much earlier with US interference in the Maidan coup of 2014. While the Biden regime is attempting to pivot to China, they still stand with Ukraine and are sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and other “relief” to Ukraine. This money just serves to enrich the military industrial complex - war is good for business.
Even though Nazism in Ukraine has been thoroughly documented, there are many who still staunchly believe it is a minor problem. The US public has been thoroughly propagandaized - I hope this article will serve to help break through some of that propaganda.
I highly recommend everyone listen to all three parts of Crawdads and Taters’ coverage of Ukraine for more background on the conflict.
It’s not just Azov
Azov is the most prominent Nazi battalion in Ukraine and has been exporting its ideals globally. However, Nazism in Ukraine is not isolated to the Azov battalion. Nazi defenders brainwashed by western propaganda have claimed that Azov has depoliticized and is no longer a Nazi battalion. This simply is not true.
According to an April 2020 article from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point:
Recent cases in the United States, many of which are covered
in this survey, suggest that a number of individuals charged with
or convicted of offenses ranging from conspiracy to swatting have
admired neo-Nazi movements in Europe, and especially the Azov
Regiment and National Corps in Ukraine.
These are the same Azov Nazis who visited at least 50 members of congress in October 2022.
Facebook had banned praise of the Azov prior to February 2022, but took them off their list of Dangerous Individuals and Organizations. In December, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) rescinded their former designation of Azov as “far right.” Standford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation still describes Azov as far right:
It is notable for its recruitment of far-right foreign fighters from the U.S., Russia, and Europe, as well as extensive transnational ties with other far-right organizations
While Azov takes the limelight, Nazism is ingrained within the Ukrainian military and culture and has been consistently growing since then Ukrainian President Yushenko began rehabilitating Stepan Bandera and other Nazi collaboraters after the Orange Revolution in 2004. The US backed, neo-Nazi led Maidan coup of 2014 only accelerated this phenomenon.
What follows is not a comprehensive list, but just a few of the Nazi groups I was able to find.
According to Reuters, at the start of 2022 Ukraine’s military contained 102,000 paramilitary forces compared to 145,000 in the regular army. Certainly not all of these are Nazi battalions, but many of them are the so-called “Reprisal battalions” recruited to fight in the Donbass after 2014.
The existence of many of these right wing paramilitaries is unconstitutional according to Article 37 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
Political parties and public associations shall not have paramilitary formations. - Article 37, Constitution of Ukraine
Many of these paramilitary units including Azov are directly connected to political parties and associations.
The 57th Motorized Brigade of Ukraine
The armband insignia of the 57th Motorized Brigade of Ukraine uses the “Tyr rune.” This rune is often associated with white supremacist groups. As the Anti Defamation League describes:
The Tyr rune is one of many ancient European symbols appropriated by the Nazis in their attempts to create an idealized "Aryan/Norse" heritage. This gave symbols such as the Tyr rune a new, racist significance that they did not originally have. Nazi Germany used the Tyr rune as a symbol for a number of Nazi entities, including the leadership schools (Reichsführerschulen) of Hitler's brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung, and a Waffen SS infantry division, among others.
The 57th Motorized Brigade was formed after the Maidan coup. This unit has been highly decorated by President Zelensky including receiving the honorary award "For Courage and Bravery." The deputy minister of defense of Russia, Mikhail Mizintsev, has accused the 57th Motorized Brigade of attempting to stage war crimes in Luhansk.
The Georgian Legion is a Ukrainian army unit (originally paramilitary in 2014, absorbed into the army in 2016) that is in great part made up of foreign fighters. According to an interview with Kacper Rekawek, who has studied foreign fighters in Ukraine since 2014, the Georgian Legion has “a special affinity, it seems, for U.S. recruits.” The Georgian Legion was the battalion of choice for the North Atlantic Fellas Organization (NAFO) fundraising efforts.
The NAFO connection has been outlined in detail by Alex Rubinstein of the Grayzone.
The Georgian Legion have been involved in numerous war crimes including the execution of an unarmed captive Russian soldier. Mamuka Mamulashvili, leader of the Georgian Legion, has said:
“We will not take Russian soldiers, as well as Kadyrovites [Chechnyan fighters]; in any case, we will not take prisoners, not a single person will be captured”
Mamuka Mamulashvili has also been tied to the snipers in the Maidan by eye witness testimony of other Georgians.
Early in the morning on February 20, at about 8, I heard the sound of gunshots coming from the conservatory; 3 or 4 minutes later, Mamulashvili's group opened fire from windows on the third floor of Hotel Ukraina. They were shooting in pairs. After each shot, they moved to another room and fired again. When it was all over, they told us to get out. That same day Bezho and I flew to Tbilisi. - Koba Nergadze
C-14 (aka S-14) and their paramilitary
C-14 (Sich-14) was founded as the youth wing of the ultra right party Svoboda in 2010 and although it officially disbanded in 2020, has been reborn as Foundation for the Future. The 14 in their name likely refers to the 14 words, a white supremacist rallying slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” In 2018, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor declared C-14 to be a nationalist hate group.
C-14 also has a battalion officially known as 4th Sich Company of the Kyiv Regiment. This battalion was formed by the members of Svoboda, the ultra right nationalist party that was prominent in the Maidan coup. C-14 has been involved in racist pogroms against the Romani population of Ukraine.
These are just a few of the more prominent far right nationalist paramilitary organizations in Ukraine. I will be covering more in Part 2 of this article.
The root problem IMO is there are people and cultures that feel superior to others. This, I feel, is due to most of our global “developed” countries being predicated on “competitive self-determination” vs the more rational “cooperative self-determination”. Prominent and current examples of competitors that feel superior to others is the US and Israel. Hitler and Nero are a couple historical examples. There are others but these two show the most damage from the competitive ethic: vanity, secrecy, coercion, corruption, anxiety, despair and chance. The negative artifacts of competing are endemic to any competition and encourages people to utilize these negative traits to “win”. Our court system is actually a well laid out and logical system but guess what is holding it back from working like it should? Competitive self-determination. One must ask, what other things deemed as good are also adversely affected by this competitive ethic? Science and democracy. Science is hobbled by the competition and just doesn’t work right while democracy is too because when did a competition ever use science or democracy as a necessary component? Not happening. If you follow this logic, you will gain new insight into the bigger picture and also be able to deconstruct with utmost accuracy any news story or ideological-political discussion. Game over. If you want an airtight formula that doesn’t need any “ism” to be effective or a solid path to intellectual self-defense, this may be the ticket.
Birrion, once again, my applause and thanks for another well-done article. It's so helpful to have this important background information to point others to... something I'll try to do more often.
We're up against such a massive propaganda-and-censorship campaign, one with massive, seemingly unlimited resources; so every bit of information we can supply, no matter how limited its reach seems to be, is important. I appreciate you.