There is an official neo-Nazi military unit in Ukraine, the so-called Azov Battalion. Azov is an extreme right-wing volunteer infantry unit whose members (about 2,500) are ultranationalists who nurture neo-Nazi and supremacist ideologies.

The unit was originally formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 by the ultranationalist Patriots of Ukraine gang and the neo-Nazi group of the National Socialist Alliance of Ukraine (SNA). Both groups nurture xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideals and physically attack migrants, the Roma community and people who oppose their views.

Azov is an ideological and political movement

It is a military unit that has grown into an ideological-political movement, whose central base is near the city of Mariupol, which lies on the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov. Mariupol is one of the cities that suffered the most in this Russian invasion.

These regions are controlled by Russian-backed Kremlin separatists, which Russia annexed in 2014. Many members of the Azov Battalion are originally from eastern Ukraine and speak Russian, and many have been expelled from their homes by separatists who have occupied eastern Ukraine.

Seven days ago, a video appeared in which an alleged member of Azov immersed bullets in lard. It was a message to the Chechens that they were not welcome in Ukraine.

"Dear Muslim brothers, you will not go to paradise with us. You will not be allowed to go to paradise. Go home, please. You will get into trouble here. Thank you for your attention, goodbye," the man said in the video. Al Jazeera also took the video, but failed to confirm its authenticity.

They are all volunteers

Azov, meanwhile, has formed his own political wing, the National Corps, a paramilitary unit called the National Militia, Youth Corps, and has a sports bar, gym and "social center" known as the Cossack House, not far from Maidan. . During the campaign for the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in 2019, the National Corps party formed a united radical-right party list with the government initiative Yarosh, the Right Sector and Svoboda. This coalition won only 2.15% of the votes on the national electoral list and failed to win a single seat in the Verkhovna Rada.

As early as 2017, it was reported that hundreds of children in Ukraine were spending the summer in a military camp where, among other things, they learned to assemble Kalashnikovs and war theory. The camp was opened by the Azov Battalion.

But to fully understand the Azov Battalion, one has to look at it from an ideological point of view. Spokesman Andriy Dyachenko said in 2015 that 10 to 20 percent of the unit's members were neo-Nazis. Nazi symbols found their place on uniforms.

The battalion still has neo-Nazi symbols in its insignia. Military stitches and tattoos with SS insignia and a Nazi swastika were seen on a number of soldiers at the beginning of the unit.

Link: https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/ukrajina-ima-sluzbenu-vojnu-postrojbu-neonacista/2345315.aspx

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