Azov Battalion

With Russian forces besieging Mariupol, in which 120,000+ ethnic 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 get out the city.

When asked by SKAI news if he planned to leave the city, Kiouranas responded "how can I go out? When you try to leave you run the hazard of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion."

"They would kill 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 Guard of Ukraine, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Ocean coastal region.


In 2014, the regiment gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and war crimes, too equally neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment itself, as seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, i of the original symbols used by the 2d SS Panzer Division 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 connexion with Nazism.

In 2014, a spokesman for the regiment said around ten-twenty% of the unit were neo-Nazis.

In 2018, a provision in an appropriations bill passed past the U.S. Congress blocked armed forces aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist credo; in 2015, a like ban on aid to the grouping was overturned past the Congress.

Azov Battalion

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

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

The unit'due south kickoff commander was far-right nationalist Andriy Biletsky, who led the neo-Nazi Social-National Assembly and Patriot of Ukraine.

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

In 2018, the U.South. House of Representatives likewise passed a provision blocking any training 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 force per unit area from The Pentagon, the amendments were quietly lifted.

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

"Of form not, information technology's all made up, there are just a lot of people who are interested in Nordic mythology," said one fighter when asked past The Guardian in 2014 if at that place were neo-Nazis in the battalion.

When asked what his own political views were, however, he said "national socialist". As for the swastika tattoos on at least one human being seen at the Azov base, "the swastika has goose egg to do with the Nazis, information technology was an aboriginal lord's day symbol," he claimed.

The battalion has drawn far-correct volunteers from away, such equally Mikael Skillt, a 37-yr-old Swede, trained as a sniper in the Swedish army, who described himself as an "ethnic nationalist" and fights on the front end line with the battalion.

Another speaking to The Guardian, Dmitry, said "I have nothing confronting Russian nationalists, or a great Russian federation. Simply Putin's not even a Russian. Putin's a Jew."

Dmitry claimed non to exist a Nazi, but waxed lyrical well-nigh Adolf Hitler as a military leader, and believes the Holocaust never happened.

Not everyone in the Azov battalion thinks like Dmitry, but after speaking with dozens of its fighters and embedding on several missions during the past week in and effectually the strategic port urban center of Mariupol, the Guardian institute many of them to have disturbing political views, and near all to exist intent on "bringing the fight to Kiev" when the war in the east is over.