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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2022/08/19/1384992/much-azov-about-nothing-how-the-ukrainian-neo-nazis-canard-fooled-the-world
Russia will use any excuse it wants to invade. If Azov didn't exist it woud be NATO being too close. Putin just wants more land that's all.
That said you can't just discard the Azov origin which is only 8 years old. That's like saying ISIS origins don't matter. The old gang with a new name is just the old gang.
This article is a great summary. Especially near the middle: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/azov-battalion-neo-nazi/
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There is a kernel of truth in the allegations that Azov is just a Russian bogeyman. The Kremlin and Ukraine’s neo-Nazis have a symbiotic relationship that reaches to the very heart of this war: Putin needed a pretext to justify his illegal invasion; for that, he turned to Azov. Moscow seized on Azov’s existence to paint all of Ukraine as a cesspool of fascism in need of “denazification.” Azov is the linchpin in Putin’s narrative—without it, his excuse for the war is gone.
In turn, Azov’s defenders have capitalized on Russia’s obsession by implying that anyone who criticizes the group is a Putin apologist. Moscow and Azov use each other to defend the indefensible: For Russia, it’s acceptable to invade a sovereign country to fight neo-Nazis; for the West, it’s appropriate to lionize neo-Nazis because they’re fighting Russia
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE OLD:
The problem with insisting that Azov’s neo-Nazism is just a Russian lie is the abundance of evidence to the contrary. Seven years’ worth of Western articles chronicling the group’s nature was too much to ignore. This left Azov’s whitewashers with the unenviable task of cobbling together a come-to-Jesus story in which Azov began as a neo-Nazi paramilitary group but somehow saw the error of its ways before 2022.
The narrative that emerged goes like this: (a) Azov’s deradicalization started after it joined Ukraine’s National Guard—over time, Biletsky and other veterans of the 2014 battalion were filtered out, implying that the new leadership is neo-Nazi free; (b) yes, there are a few leftover neo-Nazis in the National Corps, Azov’s political party; but (c) that doesn’t matter, because the Azov Regiment—later a brigade—has long since separated from the National Corps, which is little more than a fringe political sideshow.
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It's literally the opposite though - it's a new gang with the old name, which is why useful idiots keep repeating neonazi claims about Azov. Recruits have been assigned to Azov by standard Ukrainian National Guard's standards since it's absorption and the purging of many of its radical members in 2015. In an organization where the term of enlistment is 3 years, and not permanent, unlike, you know, ISIS, or even voluntary political parties, 8 years is a long fucking time.
The article relies on the presumption that Western media reporting on Azov pre-2022 weren't offering surface level analysis that anyone who actually followed the fucking situation knew was outdated by 2017. But believe what you want - useful idiots always do.
A bit further down the article it also goes over the current members of Azov and how they are basically the same as before and they're still saying Nazi shit.
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Prokopenko, for his part, came out of the White Boys Club, superfans of the Dynamo Kyiv soccer team (far-right groups organized around soccer teams are common across Europe), who celebrated him when he was given an award in October 2022. The group’s Facebook posts have typically included phrases like “100% White” and “88” (code for “Heil Hitler”), praise for Holocaust perpetrators, and Waffen-SS insignia.
During his time in Azov, Prokopenko’s platoon was unofficially called the Borodach Division. Its insignia was the Totenkopf, the skull-and-crossbones design used by the SS, which has become a popular neo-Nazi symbol. (Azov’s version added some fascist whimsy by giving the skull a beard and hipster mustache.)
Azov’s current acting commander—who took over in June 2022, after Prokopenko surrendered to Russian forces—is also an original Azov veteran.> By 2021, the Azov Movement’s position as a premier hub of transnational white supremacy was firmly established. It was tracked by researchers; its fighters were banned from receiving military aid by Congress; and it was kicked off Facebook. The State Department declared its political wing a “nationalist hate group.” Journalists exposed its enlistment of fighters from Sweden to Australia.
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