Ukraine’s Azov Battalion looks to rebuild and clean image – Vigor Times – Henry Club

“Don’t believe the Russian propaganda,” said 29-year-old Vyacheslav Rodionov, a flute player with the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, which now leads a unit of about 20 Azov fighters. “They will fuck Azov as much as they can, call us Nazis – the real Nazis are the Russian army.”

Azov’s widely acclaimed resistance at Mariupol, resulting in hundreds of its fighters being taken as prisoners of war by Russia, has cemented its image, even as the battalion continues to be in court dispute.

On 27 February, three days after Russia launched its offensive, Ukraine’s National Guard posted a video that showed an Azov fighter dousing bullets in pig fat, clearly showing Russia. A move designed to intimidate any Muslim Chechen fighting on behalf of the U.S.

Twitter

Said the tweet violated its rules against hateful conduct.

Few would deny that the origins of the Azov are problematic. The group’s first commander, Andrey Biletsky, joined Azov in 2014 after major political groups openly supported neo-Nazi and white supremacist views. Mr Biletsky left in October 2016 to lead the National Corps, a new right-wing party aligned with the regiment.

Mr. Biletsky is still actively involved with Azov, maintaining regular contact with its members and participating in their training. He denies being an ethnic nationalist.

“An ethnic Ukrainian from Donetsk fighting with a St. George ribbon or Red Star”—a reference to Russian and Soviet military symbols—is “less to me a Ukrainian than a Georgian born in the mountains,” he said. Told.

Azov was formed as a volunteer battalion in Mariupol in 2014, at a time when the Ukrainian army was scattered. This brought together a ragtag group of fighters who successfully repulsed an attack on the port city by Russian-backed separatists. It attracted a diverse collection of characters, among them amateur historians, war reconstructors, neo-Nazis, and hard-core soccer fans.

That summer and fall, men commanded by Georgian Army instructors faced further attacks by Russia’s proxy forces and began to build their reputation as a formidable force.

“These were the most battle-ready, most motivated fighters, who had already proved their mettle in freeing Mariupol,” said political adviser Oleksandr Kovzhun. early stages.

Mr Kovzhun said he conducted a survey among its members in 2014, when the battalion numbered 345, which found that 40% had received higher education and 18% held history degrees, with two of its members PHD.

Ukraine’s then Interior Minister

Arsen Avakov

said that the purpose of creating Azov was to counter the Russian narrative about the oppression of Kyiv on Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

“It was part of the Russian propaganda that they were Nazi units, that they were only Ukrainian-speaking and that they were all extremists, which is not true,” Avakov said. “Most of the fighters with Azov speak Russian, like I’m talking to you in Russian right now.”

The influx of members who joined since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February included self-proclaimed nationalists, but Azov’s new fighters said they oppose fascism and do not subscribe to any extremist views. . Many Azov fighters like to describe themselves as “football hooligans”—a reference to rowdy and sometimes violent football fans. Many of them wore patches on their uniforms with the logo of their favorite football team.

However, it is difficult to make broad generalizations about the members of the Azov.

Azov fighters in training, who joined the regiment in February after the Russian offensive, come from all walks of life. are piano teachers and professional musicians; One of them owns a Kyiv-based store that sells vegetarian pet food; Many of them are lawyers.

Many say they chose Azov over other regiments not because of its nationalism, but because it offered a quicker route to the battlefield and its reputation as an elite fighting force.

Andrew Milburn, a US Marine Corps veteran who founded the Mozart group that helped train Azov fighters at their request, says getting inexperienced people to the battlefield fast enough is a challenge. “Given just 120 bullets, how can you get a guy who’s never fired a weapon where he’s constantly hitting a target?” They said.

According to the trainers of the Mozart group, they are so inexperienced that one of them shot himself in the leg during a training session last month.

“It takes longer than we have,” said Mr Milburn. “But they are definitely inspired.”

It is not just training that is an issue; Fighters lack equipment. Dmitry Kukharchuk, commander of Kyiv’s 2nd Battalion Special Forces, said most volunteers have been forced to buy their weapons, helmets, flak jackets and shoes.

Azov’s tainted reputation as a far-right group had contributed to the lack of equipment.

In 2018, Congress banned Azov from receiving US weapons, weapons, or training. The following year, 40 US Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the then Secretary of State.

Mike Pompeo

Demanding that several international far-right movements, including Azov, be officially placed on the list of foreign terrorist organization along with Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

The letter, prepared by now-former Representative Max Rose, classifies Azov as one of the world’s “violent white supremacist extremist groups”, adding that it has been “recruiting, radicalizing and training US citizens for years”. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Azov denies the allegation.

The lawmakers pointed to alleged incidents cited by the United Nations in which detainees were tortured by Azov fighters. The United Nations has also recently raised concerns about “credible allegations” of torture by Ukrainian forces in the current war with Russia, including a video shared by the Azov Regiment showing Russian soldiers in their underwear His hands are tied behind his back and his eyes are covered.

Representative Jason Crowe (d., Colo.), who was among the signatories to the 2018 letter, said he was “not aware of any information that currently shows a direct link between [of Azov fighters] Now for the extremism. ,

“I am sensitive to the fact that the past is not necessarily the prelude here, that groups can change and evolve and that war may have changed the organisation,” he said.

The Battle of Mariupol, where hundreds of Azov fighters stayed for weeks on the grounds of the Azovstal plant, may have helped change that image. The 2,000 or more Ukrainian fighters who were taken into Russian captivity in April, many of them from Azov, were hailed as heroes by Ukraine’s president.

Volodymyr Zelensky.

However, it is not clear whether this will have any effect on the US Congress or its decision to help equip the group.

Today, Azov’s Kyiv Battalion has three US-made javelins. Mr. Kukharchuk said his fighters also have NLAW short-range anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, but what they desperately need are high-mobility artillery rocket systems, tanks and above all, artillery.

“We have no heavy weapons,” said Mr. Kukharchuk.

Even in the absence of the most advanced weapons, or the most experienced fighters, the bravery that draws so many volunteers into the battalion at the training camp is evident.

Dmitry Rudakov, 32, who owns an online store selling street apparel, and is now a unit leader in Azov, was optimistic even after Mariupol.

“We will invite you to Crimea soon,” Mr. Rudakov said, referring to the picturesque Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. “I packed my swimsuit.”

—Maxim Golubenko contributed to this article.

write to Vivian Salama [email protected] and Matthew on Luxmoor [email protected]

improvement and amplification
Andrew Milburn founded the Mozart Group, which is helping to train Azov fighters. An earlier version of this article included a misspelling of his last name as Milburn. (corrected June 5)