The Azov Regiment (generally erroneously nonetheless termed the Azov Battalion, although the latter folded in 2014) and the specter of “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” has attracted appreciable Western press protection since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.
From 2014 to 2022, the Azov Regiment was primarily based within the metropolis of Mariupol in southeast Ukraine, and this yr the Azov fighters gained world visibility as defenders of the town, which Russia conquered in Might after a bloody two-month siege, destroying many of the metropolis within the course of.
The Azov Regiment is continuously invoked to conjure what Russian-Israeli historian Vyacheslav Likhachev calls the “fantasy [of] Ukrainian fascism”, and plenty of Western press sources in 2022 proceed to deal with the affiliation between “Azov Regiment/Battalion” and “Neo-Nazi” as axiomatic, with some even making an attempt to draw unsubstantiated hyperlinks between Azov and white supremacist terrorists within the West.
The “What about Azov Nazis?” canard has change into a ubiquitous tu quoque that Russia deploys to problematise Western assist for Ukraine, and distract from its personal document of atrocities. Actually which means “you additionally” in Latin, this logical fallacy is extra informally generally known as “whataboutism”, and has been deployed in Russian propaganda for many years. In cruder phrases, one may recall the playground retort, “I do know you might be, however what am I?”
A ‘pretty typical’ preventing unit
Our media’s “obsession” with the Azov Regiment (the volunteer militia the Azov Battalion now not exists) – a single unit of the Ukrainian Nationwide Guard – relies largely on superficial or out-of-date analysis.
A number of skilled assessments made in 2022 conclude the fashionable Azov Regiment is a reasonably typical preventing unit, with little, if any, political bent.
There isn’t house to canvas all these in a brief piece, however that is the conclusion of Anton Shekhovtsov, Ivan Gomza, Anders Umland, and Vyacheslav Likhachev. For a concise abstract, Likhachev’s point-by-point rebuttal of the Azov-Nazi narrative comes extremely really useful.
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The Azov Regiment of 2022 bears little relation to the ragtag militia the Azov Battalion of 2014, shaped from a number of dozen soccer hooligans, and – sure – far-right extremists.
Crucially, in late 2014, Azov was absorbed into the Ukrainian Nationwide Guard, permitting better state oversight, with appreciable consideration paid to cleaning the ranks of far-right parts, in what must be recognised for example of profitable deradicalisation.
The Azov Regiment has been repeatedly reconstituted; its extremist early leaders such because the odious Andriy Biletsky are lengthy gone, and, extra just lately, its fearsome, pseudo-pagan regimental emblem has been deserted.
Each Shekhovtsov and Gomza describe Azov as “depoliticised”, with Umland writing “its recruits now be a part of not due to ideology, however as a result of it has the status of being a very robust preventing unit”.
Nonetheless, Russian state media makes limitless reference to the diabolical “Azovtsy” to justify its brutal invasion of Ukraine.
An evaluation of greater than eight million Russian media items charts how the bogeyman of “Nazism” in Ukraine has saturated their media post-invasion, with the supposed menace of Azov “neo-Nazis” weaponised to justify Russia’s brutal destruction of Mariupol.
Whereas we can not anticipate integrity from Russian state channels, it’s lamentable that this trope additionally persists in our media.
A failure to interact with Ukrainian sources
The Azov-Nazi obsession demonstrates a outstanding failure to interact with Ukrainian sources, together with the experiences of its Jewish neighborhood, which has lengthy been scathing of the Russian declare that neo-Nazim is widespread in Ukraine.
Likhachev notes from that from 2014-2022 there have been precisely zero stories of anti-Semitic incidents dedicated by Azov in Mariupol, regardless of the town’s sizeable Jewish neighborhood.
Anti-Semitism has little resonance even amongst extra excessive Ukrainian nationalist parts, whereas polling demonstrates that Ukraine is among the many least anti-Semitic and xenophobic nations in central-east Europe.
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Paradoxically, neo-Nazi army models with hundreds of troopers beneath arms function overtly among the many invading Russian forces.
Dmitry Utkin, the founder and commander of Wagner Group, the biggest and most notorious Russian mercenary unit, is lined in Nazi tattoos that didn’t preclude him from being awarded Hero of the Russian Federation in 2016, together with a photograph op alongside Putin himself.
The commander of the affiliated “Rusich” brigade, the infamous sadist Aleksei Milchakov, answered, “I’ll inform you straight up, I’m a Nazi”, when requested in a current interview about his political convictions.
Additional, as Robert Horvath has recorded in his current monograph, Putin’s Fascists, the Kremlin has actively constructed ties with neo-Nazi teams inside Russia to police inner dissent.
Anton Shekhovtsov’s Russia and the Western Far Proper: Tango Noir paperwork Russia’s position as the important thing sponsor of the Western far proper for many years.
The position of far-right symbolism
Frankly, pictures of each Ukrainian and Russian troopers sporting tattoos or patches with far-right imagery aren’t tough to search out. As uncomfortable as this may sit with us, Gomza writes that the gravity of many of those symbols merely isn’t broadly identified in Ukraine, and may be “probably simply an emblem of a profitable preventing unit that protects Ukraine”, slightly than a politically charged image.
Marlene Laruelle, creator of Is Russia Fascist?, notes that symbols like pseudo-pagan imagery and Nordic runes frequent amongst Azov fighters are widespread in army models worldwide.
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Additional, an uncomfortable actuality, as attested in a current report on the German army, is that far-right sympathies will not be unusual in nationwide militaries globally.
Whereas most Russian propaganda makes enormous numbers of unspecific and often-implausible claims (generally known as the “firehose technique”), the framing of the Azov Regiment as diabolical neo-Nazis has been centered, constant and relentless.
Though Ukrainian sources have been withering concerning the Azov-Nazi connection for years, a “Western gaze” and an absence of space data has enabled this fantasy to persist in each journalistic and tutorial spheres.
A way of ‘ethical procrastination’
For us within the West, there’s a sure psychological consolation in seeing a false ethical equivalence between Russia and Ukraine.
Shekhovtsov observes that the “Azov Nazi” narrative permits a way of “ethical procrastination” relating to Russia’s invasion. If the struggle pits two equally problematic sides in opposition to one another, inaction turns into morally justified.
Such “ethical procrastination” makes it simpler to defer the tough collective selections vital to interrupt the again of the Russian struggle machine – particularly breaking free from dependency on Russian oil and gasoline imports.
Just one aspect is massacring civilians, deporting tons of of hundreds of kids from their homeland, and conquering and aggressively assimilating one other state’s sovereign territory.
One doesn’t have to look far to know who the true “fascists” are on this struggle.
Notice: On 1 August, Russia’s Supreme Courtroom dominated that the Azov Regiment is a terrorist organisation beneath Russian legislation, a possible prelude to deliberate present trials of Azov fighters in Mariupol.
