Springtime For the Azov Batallion
The neo-Nazi Azov Battallion is leading the charge against the Russian invasion with arms and money from the U.S.. The blowback from arming these extremists could have consequences for U.S. citizens.
Amidst all the Russophobia, from the cancellation of dead Russian writers to the banning of Russian cats from international competitions, the Western propaganda machine has gone out of it's way to clean up the image of the Azov Battallion, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group that forms part of the Ukranian National Guard.
What Nazis?
Many have tried to minimize the influence neo-Nazis have in Ukraine. People Magazine has labelled the idea of Nazi influence in Ukraine as "just total fiction." PBS Newshour said that the claim is "absurd."
The United States has recognized the Azov Battalion in the past and have ignored their own provisions to make sure that American arms don't end up in the hands of Azov Battalion members. Andriy Biletsky, Azov’s commander, once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen(subhumans).” Biletsky later became a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament and was awarded a military decoration by U.S.-backed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko .
From Military Wiki:
Initially a voluteer militia, formed as the Azov Batallion on 5 may 2014 during the 2014 pro-russian unrest in Ukraine.
Azov has since been incorporated into and is armed by Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs.
The Avoz Battallion is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit forming part of military reserve of National Guard of Ukraine.
It (Azov) saw its first combat experience recapturing Mariupol from Pro-Russian separatists force in June 2014….
All members of the unit are under contract of National Guard of Ukraine. The Azov Battalion has been labelled neo-Nazi, "patriots,” "a far right-right Ukrainian militia”.
… Biletsky is also the head of two neo-Nazi political groups, the Patriot of Ukraine and Social-National Assembly. In August 2014, he wa awarded a military decoration, “Order For Courage”, by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, and promoted to lieutenant colonel of in the Interior Ministry’s police forces.
…On 11 June 2015 the US House of Represantives passed ammendments blocking any training of Azov by US forces, citing its neo-Nazi background as the reason. On 26 June, Canadian defense minister declared as well that training by Canadian forces or support would not be provided to Azov.
The Azov Battalion has been accused of human-rights abuses by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, these abuses include torture. Although the group sometimes denies any Nazi sympathies, news outlets in the past have highlighted their love of Hitler's Germany:
While the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New York Times called the battalion “openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members’ proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.
After the United States backed coup, Ukraine became the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces.
The 2004 Orange Revolution
This isn't the first time Yanukovich was ousted from office with U.S. assistance. In 2004 Yanukovich won the presidency, but his election was disputed by the Western-backed Viktor Yushchenko:
Following the narrow victory (well, 3%, just like in the US election) of Viktor Yanukovich over challenger Viktor Yushchenko, the Yushchenko-ites have adorned themselves with bright orange garments and taken to mass street protests, challenging the legitimacy of the election and demanding a re-vote. Yushchenko even took an oath of presidency, before a group of parliamentarians well short of the quorum he needed.
But here’s a problem: the elections weren’t stolen. So says the BHHRG, one of the few NGOs in the West that isn’t a handmaiden of the Empire.
What we’re seeing is rather a re-run of “revolutions” in Belgrade (2000), Tbilisi (2003) and the attempted coup in Belarus (2001), which prominently features CIA-trained student activists from Serbia, and propaganda and financial support from the Empire.
This isn’t a popular movement, much less a democratic revolution. Commentator Jonathan Steele of the British Guardian calls this circus a “postmodern coup d’etat”.
…Lew Rockwell dispenses with the “revolutionary” nonsense on his blog:
“In fact, the US is engaging in an imperial adventure. It is seeking to install its man in office via the CIA, and to have Ukraine join Nato and become a US satellite. This is the equivalent of the old Russia subverting Mexico, and having it join the Warsaw Pact, a very hostile act.
In 2010, after Yushchenko took office, Yushchenko named Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera a national hero and gave him the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine despite never having been a citizen of Ukraine, which is a stipulation for receiving the award.
While some far-right Ukrainians see Bandera as a hero, others consider him a "a fascist and a war criminal who was, together with his followers, largely responsible for the massacres of Polish civilians and partially for the Holocaust in Ukraine."
The Azov Battalion was founded by the anti-Semite Andriy Biletsky in 2014. It incorporated many members of Biletsky’s former ultranationalist, white supremacist organisations, Patriot of Ukraine and the Social-National Assembly (SNA). These tendencies trace their political roots back to the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), headed by Stepan Bandera, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
During World War II, the OUN and the UPA allied with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union and carried out massacres of tens of thousands of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians sympathetic to the Soviet Union. After the war, both US and British intelligence services lent support to Bandera and the UPA.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, scores of far-right organisations sprang up in Ukraine, as in all the former Soviet states, drawing on this filthy anti-communist heritage and supported by the imperialist powers. The Viktor Yushchenko government, installed by the US-backed “Orange Revolution” in 2004, declared Bandera a national hero, honoured OUN and UPA fighters and heavily promoted the OUN successor organisation, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the neo-Nazi Svoboda party.
The American news outlet PBS Newshour did an interview with the Nazi mayor of Konotop who had a portrait of Stepan Bandera on the wall behind him. PBS Newshour tried to blur the portrait behind the mayor, but it is still visible in the video.
“We Have Fun Killing…”
Yevhen Karas, leader of Ukraine's neo-Nazi gang C14, gave a speech in early February where he bragged about the outsized influence that neo-Nazi groups had in the 2014 coup in Ukraine. According to Karas, without the muscle provided by the neo-Nazis, Maidan would have turned into a "gay parade."
Two Minutes Hate
To compliment all the Russian hate that is cheerfully displayed on all our major news outlets, Facebook is temporarily allowing calls for violence against Russians and our even permitting praise of the Azov Battalion:
FACEBOOK WILL TEMPORARILY allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, The Intercept has learned.
…According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”
The materials stipulate that Azov still can’t use Facebook platforms for recruiting purposes or for publishing its own statements and that the regiment’s uniforms and banners will remain as banned hate symbol imagery, even while Azov soldiers may fight wearing and displaying them. In a tacit acknowledgement of the group’s ideology, the memo provides two examples of posts that would not be allowed under the new policy: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.”
…The exemption will no doubt create confusion for Facebook’s moderators, tasked with interpreting the company’s muddled and at time contradictory censorship rules under exhausting conditions. While Facebook users may now praise any future battlefield action by Azov soldiers against Russia, the new policy notes that “any praise of violence” committed by the group is still forbidden; it’s unclear what sort of nonviolent warfare the company anticipates.
…Though the change may come as welcome news to critics who say that the sprawling, largely secret Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy can stifle online free expression, it also offers further evidence that Facebook determines what speech is permissible based on the foreign policy judgments of the United States. Last summer, for instance, Motherboard reported that Facebook similarly carved out an exception to its censorship policies in Iran, temporarily allowing users to post “Death to Khamenei” for a two-week period. “I do think it is a direct response to U.S. foreign policy,” Kayyali said of the Azov exemption. “That has always been how the … list works.”
* THIS IS THE FIRST PART OF A TWO-PART REPORT ON THE AZOV BATTALION. IF YOU LIKED THE ARTICLE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT. IF YOU DIDN’T LIKE IT, FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT JUST THE SAME.