Azov Battalion

With Russian forces besieging Mariupol, in which 120,000+ indigenous Greeks live, SKAI news spoke with a Mr Kiouranas who lives in the city and exposed that Ukrainian "fascists" are killing people for trying to leave the metropolis.

When asked by SKAI news if he planned to leave the urban center, Kiouranas responded "how can I leave? When you endeavour to leave y'all run the take a chance of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion."

"They would impale me and are responsible for everything," he added.

Who are the Azov Battalion?

Azov Special Operations Disengagement (Ukrainian: Окремий загін спеціального призначення «Азов»), or Azov Battalion, is a right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi unit of the National Baby-sit of Ukraine, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Body of water coastal region.


In 2014, the regiment gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and state of war crimes, every bit well equally neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment itself, as seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, one of the original symbols used by the 2nd SS Panzer Partitioning Das Reich.

Representatives of the Azov Battalion say that the symbol is an abbreviation for the slogan Ідея Нації (Ukrainian for "National Idea") and deny connection with Nazism.

In 2014, a spokesman for the regiment said around 10-20% of the unit of measurement were neo-Nazis.

In 2018, a provision in an appropriations nib passed by the U.S. Congress blocked military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology; in 2015, a similar ban on aid to the group was overturned by the Congress.

Azov Battalion

Members of the regiment come up from 22 countries and are of diverse backgrounds.

More than half of the regiment's members speak Russian and come from eastern Ukraine, including cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The unit's first commander was far-correct nationalist Andriy Biletsky, who led the neo-Nazi Social-National Assembly and Patriot of Ukraine.

In its early days, Azov was a special police visitor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, led by Volodymyr Shpara, the leader of the Vasylkiv, Kyiv, co-operative of Patriot of Ukraine and Right Sector.

In 2018, the U.S. Business firm of Representatives also passed a provision blocking any grooming of Azov members by American forces, citing its neo-Nazi connections.

The House had previously passed amendments banning support of Azov between 2014 and 2017, but due to pressure level from The Pentagon, the amendments were quietly lifted.

This was protested by the Simon Wiesenthal Center which stated that lifting the ban highlighted the danger of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine.

"Of grade not, it's all made up, there are just a lot of people who are interested in Nordic mythology," said one fighter when asked by The Guardian in 2014 if there were neo-Nazis in the battalion.

When asked what his ain political views were, withal, he said "national socialist". As for the swastika tattoos on at to the lowest degree i homo seen at the Azov base, "the swastika has nothing to do with the Nazis, it was an ancient lord's day symbol," he claimed.

The battalion has drawn far-right volunteers from abroad, such as Mikael Skillt, a 37-year-erstwhile Swede, trained as a sniper in the Swedish ground forces, who described himself as an "ethnic nationalist" and fights on the front line with the battalion.

Another speaking to The Guardian, Dmitry, said "I take cypher confronting Russian nationalists, or a cracking Russia. But Putin's not even a Russian. Putin's a Jew."

Dmitry claimed not to be a Nazi, but waxed lyrical virtually Adolf Hitler every bit a military machine leader, and believes the Holocaust never happened.

Non anybody in the Azov battalion thinks similar Dmitry, merely after speaking with dozens of its fighters and embedding on several missions during the by week in and effectually the strategic port city of Mariupol, the Guardian found many of them to have disturbing political views, and almost all to exist intent on "bringing the fight to Kiev" when the war in the east is over.