‘Neo-Nazi’ insurgency in Ukraine: Russian propaganda or a real risk?
Far-right Azov Battalion on the front line of battle against Russia
Launching the invasion of Ukraine just over a month ago, Vladimir Putin claimed that he was on a mission to “de-Nazify” Russia’s eastern European neighbour.
The allegation that a country with a Jewish president is overrun by the far-right was repeated on Saturday by one of Putin’s closest allies, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council.
“Of the many distortions” offered up by the Kremlin as reasons for regime change in Ukraine, the alleged need to “de-Nazify” the besieged nation’s leadership and save ethnic Russians from “genocide” is “perhaps the most bizarre”, said Allan Ripp on NBC News. But while “Putin is engaging in propaganda, it’s also true that Ukraine has a genuine Nazi problem”, Ripp added.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Front-line fighters
The most prominent far-right group involved in the fight against Russia is the Azov Battalion. Formed as a volunteer militia in 2014 to battle Russian-backed separatists in Donbas, the unit was officially incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces that same year.
The battalion, named from the Azov Sea, first joined the fight against separatists forces around Mariupol and has been based there since, leading the defence as the port city has faced relentless shelling in recent weeks.
The estimated 900 Azov members are “ultra-nationalists” who have been “accused of harbouring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology”, Al Jazeera reported. Yet the unit “received backing from Ukraine’s interior minister” following the annexation of Crimea, “as the government recognised its own military was too weak to fight off the pro-Russian separatists”.
The group’s founder is Andriy Biletsky, a white nationalist who formerly led the far-right National Corps party. He has “toned down his rhetoric in recent years”, The Guardian reported in 2020.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
But Biletsky had previously called for Ukraine to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans]”, said the paper.
In 2015, the battalion’s spokesperson said “that 10% to 20% of Azov’s recruits were Nazis”, Al Jazeera reported. And although the unit has denied that it “adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole”, images and symbols “such as the swastika and SS regalia are rife on the uniforms and bodies of Azov members”.
‘Defenders of the nation’
While “most of Ukraine's armed forces have been quietly engaged in the grind of a gruelling tug-of-war with Russia” over the past month, said The Telegraph, Azov has “been busy putting out slick videos and images trumpeting its own achievements”.
“Its well-oiled PR machine has been producing Ukraine’s arguably best-quality war videos, with camera drones perfectly capturing the attacks as they happen in real time,” the paper reported. And “Ukraine’s armed forces have happily used Azov’s videos as visual proof of the country’s counterattacks on the invading army”.
The efforts of the “effective, courageous and highly ideological” Azov fighters to stall Russia’s invasion have “won them great renown as defenders of the nation, and the support of a grateful Ukrainian state”, wrote UnHerd foreign affairs editor Aris Roussinos.
However, the “awkwardly close relationship between a liberal-democratic state” and “armed proponents of a very different ideology” is causing “some discomfort” for Ukraine’s Western backers, Roussinos added. The US Congress “has gone back and forth in recent years on whether Azov should be blocked from receiving American arms shipments”, but the battalion has begun receiving a share of Western lethal aid shipments as fighting intensifies in Ukraine.
Keep enemies closer
In the war against Russia, Azov’s “dogged, disciplined and committed fighters” have been of great use to the government in Kyiv, according to UnHerd’s Roussinos. Indeed, rather than “de-Nazifying the country”, Putin has “helped solidify the role and presence of extreme right-wing factions in Ukraine’s military, reinvigorating a waning political force”.
Unit founder Biletsky’s National Corps party “never ran for national elections”, The Telegraph said. But “its candidates have shown dismal performance at local elections in a clear sign of just how far Azov’s ideology is from concerns of ordinary Ukrainians”.
The organisation was also dealt a blow by a 2016 report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) that accused its fighters of violating international humanitarian law in its response to Russian-backed separatists.
So “the current war has surely come as a blessed relief for Azov”, said Roussinos.The concern now is that if Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is forced “to sign a peace deal surrendering Ukrainian territory” to Russia, Azov “may find a golden opportunity to challenge what remains of the state and consolidate their own power bases”.
“Right now,” Roussinos added, “Ukraine and Zelenskyy may well need the military capabilities and ideological zeal of nationalist and extreme right-wing militias simply to fight and win their battle for national survival.
“But when the war ends, both Zelenskyy and his Western backers must be very careful to ensure that they have not empowered groups whose goals are in direct conflict with the liberal-democratic norms they both pledge adherence to.”
Azov “are battle-hardened after waging some of the toughest street fighting against Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine”, Ripp said on NBC News.
And while their involvement in the Ukrainian resistance does not “justify the misery that has befallen Ukrainians over the past several weeks”, it is vital that Zelenskyy and his government acknowledge that the country’s “Nazi problem is real”, Ripp warned.
-
Today's political cartoons - December 21, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - losing it, pedal to the metal, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Three fun, festive activities to make the magic happen this Christmas Day
Inspire your children to help set the table, stage a pantomime and write thank-you letters this Christmas!
By The Week Junior Published
-
The best books of 2024 to give this Christmas
The Week Recommends From Percival Everett to Rachel Clarke these are the critics' favourite books from 2024
By The Week UK Published
-
Ukraine-Russia: are both sides readying for nuclear war?
Today's Big Question Putin changes doctrine to lower threshold for atomic weapons after Ukraine strikes with Western missiles
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The North Korean troops readying for deployment in Ukraine
The Explainer Third country wading into conflict would be 'the first step to a world war' Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned
By The Week UK Published
-
Experts call for a Nato bank to 'Trump-proof' military spending
Under The Radar A new lender could aid co-operation and save millions of pounds, say think tanks
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
What would happen if Russia declared war on Nato?
In depth Response to an attack on UK or other Western allies would be 'overwhelming'
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Last updated
-
Missile escalation: will long-range rockets make a difference to Ukraine?
Today's Big Question Kyiv is hoping for permission to use US missiles to strike deep into Russian territory
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
Atesh: the Ukrainian partisans taking on Russia
Under The Radar Underground resistance fighters are risking their lives to defend their country
By Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, The Week UK Published
-
'Second only to a nuclear bomb' – the controversial arms Russia is using in Ukraine
The Explainer Thermobaric bombs 'capable of vaporising human bodies' have been used against Ukraine
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
The peaceful archipelago that may take up arms
Under The Radar Russia's invasion of Ukraine has left the Åland Islands 'peculiarly vulnerable'
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published