Search results
Mar 31, 2022 · Although historians say Putin’s assertions about the need to liberate Ukraine from the grip of neo-Nazis and genocide against ethnic Russians in Ukraine are false propaganda, the repeated...
Mar 5, 2022 · March 5, 2022, 2:38 AM PST. By Allan Ripp. Of the many distortions manufactured by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify Russia’s assault on Ukraine, perhaps the most bizarre is his claim...
- Allan Ripp
- Principal of Ripp Media
- So What Is The Azov Regiment?
- Who Founded Azov?
- Before Becoming Part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Who Funded Azov?
- Neo-Nazi Ideology
- Human Rights Violations and War Crimes
- What Has Been The International Response to Azov?
- The Oscillation of Facebook
Azov is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members – estimated at 900 – are ultra-nationalists and accused of harbouring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology. The unit was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) gro...
The unit was led by Andriy Biletsky, who served as the the leader of both the Patriot of Ukraine (founded in 2005) and the SNA (founded in 2008). The SNA is known to have carried out attacks on minority groupsin Ukraine. In 2010, Biletsky said Ukraine’s national purposewas to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-le...
The unit received backingfrom Ukraine’s interior minister in 2014, as the government had recognised its own military was too weak to fight off the pro-Russian separatists and relied on paramilitary volunteer forces. These forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the most known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governo...
In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time said that 10 to 20 percentof Azov’s recruits were Nazis. The unit has denied it adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole, but Nazi symbols such as the swastika and SS regalia are rife on the uniforms and bodies of Azov members. For example, the uniform carries the neo-Nazi Wolfsang...
A 2016 reportby the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) has accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian law. The report detailed incidents over a period from November 2015-February 2016 where Azov had embedded their weapons and forces in used civilian buildings, and displaced residents after ...
In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the banunder pressure from the Pentagon. In October 2019, 40 members of the US Congress led by Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully...
In 2016, Facebook first designated the Azov regiment a “dangerous organisation”. Under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, Azov was banned from its platforms in 2019. The group was placed under Facebook’s Tier 1 designation, which includes groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and ISIL (ISIS). Users engaging in praise, support o...
Nazi. occupation of Soviet Ukraine. The surprise German invasion of the U.S.S.R. began on June 22, 1941. The Soviets, during their hasty retreat, shot their political prisoners and, whenever possible, evacuated personnel, dismantled and removed industrial plants, and conducted a scorched-earth policy—blowing up buildings and installations ...
Mar 20, 2018 · According to Freedom House’s Ukraine project director Matthew Schaaf, “numerous organized radical right-wing groups exist in Ukraine, and while the volunteer battalions may have been ...
Mar 29, 2022 · From what looked like a basement in the besieged port city of Mariupol, a deputy commander of the ultranationalist Azov Regiment, whose neo-Nazi roots have been used by Russia to justify...
Mar 17, 2022 · The language of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been dominated by the word “Nazi” — a puzzling assertion about a country whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish and who last fall signed a...
