Nazis or Heroes? The notorious Azov regiment is shrouded in myth

Ukraine war
Nazis or Heroes? The notorious Azov regiment is shrouded in myth

For some they are neo-Nazis, for others they are Ukrainian national heroes: the fighters of the notorious Azov regiment have become the focus of the information war between Moscow and Kyiv. While Russia branded the combat force “fascist,” the regiment’s members have been feted by many Ukrainians since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Experts warn against thinking in black and white about the regiment.

The regiment, formerly known as the Azov Battalion, has its roots in the port city of Mariupol on the Sea of ​​Azov, which has been under siege by the Russian army for weeks. When Russia bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol on February 24, two weeks after it began its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin justified it by saying members of the Azov regiment “and other extremists” were holed up in the building.

Founder of the Azov regiment was a neo-Nazi

This fits with the Russian narrative, according to which the war of aggression in Ukraine serves to “denazify” the neighboring country – a portrayal that Kyiv and the West call grotesque. Not only is the democratically elected Jew Volodymyr Zelenskyy the head of state in Ukraine – the extreme right also plays only a marginal role in the rest of the political landscape in Ukraine today, as Anna Colin Lebedev from the University of Paris-Nanterre notes.

It is more complicated with the Azov regiment. Founded as a volunteer battalion shortly after the start of the eastern Ukraine conflict in 2014, its fighters have caused a stir in the past with neo-Nazi symbols such as the wolf rod. The well-known right-wing extremist Andriy Biletskyi was one of the founders of the battalion.

In the meantime, the Azov regiment, which currently has 2,000 to 3,000 fighters, has been integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard like other paramilitary units. It is thus under the command of the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior.

Now the troops are said to be “de-ideologized”.

At the time of its founding in 2014, the Azov battalion actually had a “right-wing extremist background,” says expert Andreas Umland from the Stockholm Center for East European Studies of the AFP news agency. In the meantime, however, the regiment has “de-ideologized” and developed into a normal combat unit.

Many recruits no longer joined the unit for ideological reasons, but because of its reputation for fighting “particularly hard,” says Umland. The Wolfsangel symbol, which is still used by the Azov regiment, no longer has any fascist “connotation” in Ukraine.

According to experts, the fact that Russian propaganda against Ukraine continues to focus to a large extent on the Azov regiment and its alleged right-wing extremist character has to do with the collective Russian memory of the Second World War, which can be evoked by it.

Azov regiment gets involved on Telegram

“In the Russian context, the terms ‘Nazism’ and ‘fascism’ mean absolute evil that cannot be negotiated: you can only fight it and try to eradicate it,” says political scientist Sergei Fediunin from the French National Institute for Oriental Languages ​​and Societies .

In Russian and pro-Russian propaganda, the Ukrainian NS collaborator Stepan Bandera and his nationalist supporters, who were still active after 1945, are being remembered again and again.

Meanwhile, the Azov regiment itself is heavily involved in the information war with Russia. In the messenger service Telegram, its members regularly publish statements about alleged partial victories over the Russian army. The “true fascists” are the Russians, it says.

The Azov regiment hardly differs from other Ukrainian combat units, says Vyacheslav Likhachev of the Kyiv-based human rights organization Zmina. However, the regiment has “better PR” and also attracts a particularly large number of fighters. It can therefore choose “the best”.

tis / Valérie Lerox
AFP