03-16-2022, 04:26 PM
I've been doing some reading about Azov and another far-right militia called Right Sector, both borne of the Maidan protest movement of 2013/14. It's some interesting stuff that you certainly don't/won't hear about in the media.
Both are nationalist groups and don't necessarily think of themselves as Nazis (even though Azov was formed by the leader of a nazi group.) They definitely have a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" relationship with the Ukraine government who backs them and relies on them to support the Ukraine military when needed, but can also be a target of these groups as in the case of the Right Sector fighting Ukrainian security forces and police in 2014 when they demanded the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs resign. They also thought the president at the time, Porshenko, was useless. In this video from 2015 there are citizens who felt the same about the politicians in general and didn't have a problem with Right Sector challenging the government (about the 8:56 mark).
I think it's important to see all viewpoints, especially in situations like we are seeing today in Ukraine. We can't trust any media or politician to tell the full story because everyone has an agenda. An observation from one of the articles linked below in regards to Putin wanting to rid Ukraine of nazis:
Similarly, until the Russian invasion, Western governments and news outlets frequently warned of the dangers of Western neo-Nazis and white supremacists gaining combat experience fighting alongside Azov and their allied Nazi subfactions. Yet in the heat of the moment, these concerns seem to have dissipated …
Like Ukraine’s other extreme Right-wing militias, Azov are dogged, disciplined and committed fighters, which is why the weak Ukrainian state has found itself forced to rely upon their muscle during its hours of greatest need: during the Maidan revolution, during the war against separatists from 2014 onwards, and now to fend off the Russian invasion. …
Putin has it backwards:
Groups such as Azov are only prominent precisely because of Russia’s meddling in Ukraine. Instead of de-Nazifying the country, Russian aggression has helped solidify the role and presence of extreme Right-wing factions in Ukraine’s military, reinvigorating a waning political force rejected by the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians.
Ukraine's Far-Right Militias from 2022 focuses mostly on Azov but mentions Right Sector
Truth, partial truths and outright lies compete for dominance in the media narrative. Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia invaded Ukraine to “de-Nazify” the country is surely one of the clearest examples. The Russian claim that the Maidan revolution of 2014 was a “fascist coup” and that Ukraine is a Nazi state has been used for years by Putin and his supporters to justify his occupation of Crimea and support for Russian-speaking separatists in the country’s east, winning many online adherents.
But the Russian claim is false: Ukraine is a genuine liberal-democratic state, though an imperfect one, with free elections that produce significant changes of power, including the election, in 2019, of the liberal-populist reformer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine is, unequivocally, not a Nazi state: the Russian casus belli is a lie. …
However, there are Nazis in Ukraine:
It is an observable fact … that the Ukrainian state has, since 2014, provided funding, weapons and other forms of support to extreme Right-wing militias, including neo-Nazi ones. This is not a new or controversial observation.
Back in 2019, I spent time in Ukraine interviewing senior figures in the constellation of state-backed extreme Right-wing groups for Harper’s magazine; they were all quite open about their ideology and plans for the future. …
Reporting … has largely focused on the Azov movement, Ukraine’s most powerful extreme Right-wing group, and the one most favoured by the state’s largesse.....
The Maidan Protest Movement this is a long read that I haven't gotten all the way through but it has a lot of info and points to the corruption the people of Ukraine wanted the country to be rid of.
Ukraine’s pro-European trajectory was abruptly halted in November 2013, when a planned association agreement with the EU was scuttled just days before it was scheduled to be signed. The accord would have more closely integrated political and economic ties between the EU and Ukraine, but Yanukovych bowed to intense pressure from Moscow. Street protests erupted in Kyiv, and Lutsenko and Klitschko emerged as the leaders of the largest demonstrations since the Orange Revolution. Police violently dispersed crowds in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”), and, as the protests continued into December, demonstrators occupied Kyiv’s city hall and called on Yanukovych to resign. Russia, in turn, offered to cut the price of natural gas and purchase $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds to prop up the country’s faltering economy.....
The Rise of Azov from 2016
Strange it may seem, but Ukraine’s far right and Russia’s propaganda machine share a common fantasy: a radical right-wing coup in Kyiv. Just as the Ukrainian right has been making moves in domestic politics over the past year, a coup scenario in the country’s capital would be precisely the escalation Russia needs to win the war in the east.
If we do see regime change in Ukraine, then the Azov volunteer battalion is a likely candidate to take charge of this new “junta”. Formed from far-right groups as separatist conflict broke out in 2014, Azov was initially created as a special police battalion, and quickly won a reputation for defending the city of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine. It is now a regiment within Ukraine’s National Guard.....
I hope these give you an idea of what people are talking about when they mention nazis in Ukraine or you hear of far-right militias fighting with Ukraine's military and volunteer military.
Both are nationalist groups and don't necessarily think of themselves as Nazis (even though Azov was formed by the leader of a nazi group.) They definitely have a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" relationship with the Ukraine government who backs them and relies on them to support the Ukraine military when needed, but can also be a target of these groups as in the case of the Right Sector fighting Ukrainian security forces and police in 2014 when they demanded the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs resign. They also thought the president at the time, Porshenko, was useless. In this video from 2015 there are citizens who felt the same about the politicians in general and didn't have a problem with Right Sector challenging the government (about the 8:56 mark).
I think it's important to see all viewpoints, especially in situations like we are seeing today in Ukraine. We can't trust any media or politician to tell the full story because everyone has an agenda. An observation from one of the articles linked below in regards to Putin wanting to rid Ukraine of nazis:
Similarly, until the Russian invasion, Western governments and news outlets frequently warned of the dangers of Western neo-Nazis and white supremacists gaining combat experience fighting alongside Azov and their allied Nazi subfactions. Yet in the heat of the moment, these concerns seem to have dissipated …
Like Ukraine’s other extreme Right-wing militias, Azov are dogged, disciplined and committed fighters, which is why the weak Ukrainian state has found itself forced to rely upon their muscle during its hours of greatest need: during the Maidan revolution, during the war against separatists from 2014 onwards, and now to fend off the Russian invasion. …
Putin has it backwards:
Groups such as Azov are only prominent precisely because of Russia’s meddling in Ukraine. Instead of de-Nazifying the country, Russian aggression has helped solidify the role and presence of extreme Right-wing factions in Ukraine’s military, reinvigorating a waning political force rejected by the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians.
Ukraine's Far-Right Militias from 2022 focuses mostly on Azov but mentions Right Sector
Truth, partial truths and outright lies compete for dominance in the media narrative. Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia invaded Ukraine to “de-Nazify” the country is surely one of the clearest examples. The Russian claim that the Maidan revolution of 2014 was a “fascist coup” and that Ukraine is a Nazi state has been used for years by Putin and his supporters to justify his occupation of Crimea and support for Russian-speaking separatists in the country’s east, winning many online adherents.
But the Russian claim is false: Ukraine is a genuine liberal-democratic state, though an imperfect one, with free elections that produce significant changes of power, including the election, in 2019, of the liberal-populist reformer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine is, unequivocally, not a Nazi state: the Russian casus belli is a lie. …
However, there are Nazis in Ukraine:
It is an observable fact … that the Ukrainian state has, since 2014, provided funding, weapons and other forms of support to extreme Right-wing militias, including neo-Nazi ones. This is not a new or controversial observation.
Back in 2019, I spent time in Ukraine interviewing senior figures in the constellation of state-backed extreme Right-wing groups for Harper’s magazine; they were all quite open about their ideology and plans for the future. …
Reporting … has largely focused on the Azov movement, Ukraine’s most powerful extreme Right-wing group, and the one most favoured by the state’s largesse.....
The Maidan Protest Movement this is a long read that I haven't gotten all the way through but it has a lot of info and points to the corruption the people of Ukraine wanted the country to be rid of.
Ukraine’s pro-European trajectory was abruptly halted in November 2013, when a planned association agreement with the EU was scuttled just days before it was scheduled to be signed. The accord would have more closely integrated political and economic ties between the EU and Ukraine, but Yanukovych bowed to intense pressure from Moscow. Street protests erupted in Kyiv, and Lutsenko and Klitschko emerged as the leaders of the largest demonstrations since the Orange Revolution. Police violently dispersed crowds in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”), and, as the protests continued into December, demonstrators occupied Kyiv’s city hall and called on Yanukovych to resign. Russia, in turn, offered to cut the price of natural gas and purchase $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds to prop up the country’s faltering economy.....
The Rise of Azov from 2016
Strange it may seem, but Ukraine’s far right and Russia’s propaganda machine share a common fantasy: a radical right-wing coup in Kyiv. Just as the Ukrainian right has been making moves in domestic politics over the past year, a coup scenario in the country’s capital would be precisely the escalation Russia needs to win the war in the east.
If we do see regime change in Ukraine, then the Azov volunteer battalion is a likely candidate to take charge of this new “junta”. Formed from far-right groups as separatist conflict broke out in 2014, Azov was initially created as a special police battalion, and quickly won a reputation for defending the city of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine. It is now a regiment within Ukraine’s National Guard.....
I hope these give you an idea of what people are talking about when they mention nazis in Ukraine or you hear of far-right militias fighting with Ukraine's military and volunteer military.