All Things Russia & Ukraine

[Typical Lax Dad]

It’s another way to attempt to build the case to let Russia do whatever they want wherever they want. That’s all.

Sympathizer.

We are about to hear a lot about the Azov Regiment, both for their holdout in Mariupol & in Putin's May 9th speech.
Let's see how much the msm tells us about their history & how much whitewash is applied.

Yes, there are a lot of sympathizers for the Azov Regiment. Some in this forum.

[Farfromgeneva]

I wouldn't argue with the contention that the far right is a problem, including in Ukraine. And US for that matter.

But both Ukraine and the US have made efforts to clean out such, albeit insufficiently most of us would argue. Not all of us have agreed on this, say here in the US...

But, by comparison, we have a huge Russian propaganda campaign over years of doing so that is flat out Orwellian. Sure, some of these nationalists in Ukraine include some ugly, yes fascist, characters...but the worst of the fascist right wing in Europe, by far, is allied with Russia.

And Putin is far more of a brutal, fascist dictator than any other leader in Europe. By a wide margin.

So, the MOST IMPORTANT thing to communicate is that Putin is a lying POS war criminal...whose propaganda machine must be countered.

BTW, interesting article source, a socialist magazine targeted to US far left. Kinda slanted perspective, but fun to see you cite a far left source rather than a far right one...they all kinda come together at the extremes...but makes for interesting reading.

Diversion Alert --- nobody is disputing any of the negative stuff you say about Putin. That has nothing to do with you being an apologist for a Ukrainian neo-Nazi organization. Now that they are fighting the Russians, they have been magically transformed into heroes & you are whitewashing them.

Just be honest. They may be neo-Nazi skin heads, but they're our neo-Nazi skin heads, because they are our proxy fighters against the Russians.
We find them useful. If they were a US group, you'd go nuts if they were allowed to exist, let alone be welcomed into our National Guard.
Would you be ok with their US equivalents serving in our military ? Would you give them a waiver for their tattoos ?
They are fierce fighters, so are the Chechens & Wagner mercenaries.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1010221

MSM…anti military…far left socialist…anti American

[Farfromgeneva]

It’s another way to attempt to build the case to let Russia do whatever they want wherever they want. That’s all.

Sympathizer.

We are about to hear a lot about the Azov Regiment, both for their holdout in Mariupol & in Putin's May 9th speech.
Let's see how much the msm tells us about their history & how much whitewash is applied.

Yes, there are a lot of sympathizers for the Azov Regiment. Some in this forum.

Name them or move on

[MDlaxfan76]

It’s another way to attempt to build the case to let Russia do whatever they want wherever they want. That’s all.

Sympathizer.

We are about to hear a lot about the Azov Regiment, both for their holdout in Mariupol & in Putin's May 9th speech.
Let's see how much the msm tells us about their history & how much whitewash is applied.

Yes, there are a lot of sympathizers for the Azov Regiment. Some in this forum.

mmmm, weren't you one of the strongest deniers that we have nazis, white nationalists, in our own US military?

Seems to me that was the case, and yet here you are applying a very different standard when applied to people with a tremendously different history in their conflict with invaders from Russia.

To be clear, I'm not a "sympathizer" with nazis, anywhere, but there's no question who the fascist aggressors are in this conflict...and that's Putin's Russia.

[old salt]

It’s another way to attempt to build the case to let Russia do whatever they want wherever they want. That’s all.

Sympathizer.

We are about to hear a lot about the Azov Regiment, both for their holdout in Mariupol & in Putin's May 9th speech.
Let's see how much the msm tells us about their history & how much whitewash is applied.

Yes, there are a lot of sympathizers for the Azov Regiment. Some in this forum.

mmmm, weren't you one of the strongest deniers that we have nazis, white nationalists, in our own US military?

Seems to me that was the case, and yet here you are applying a very different standard when applied to people with a tremendously different history in their conflict with invaders from Russia.

To be clear, I'm not a "sympathizer" with nazis, anywhere, but there's no question who the fascist aggressors are in this conflict...and that's Putin's Russia.

Name the Nazi's & white nationalists that have been found within the US military. What has been their fate ? Compare that to a 2500 man unit, formally incorporated into the National Guard. It is ludicrous that you'd even attempt to make that connection.

You voiced your concern about even the possibility of white supremacists or neo-Nazis in the US military, yet you ignore or make excuses for them in Ukraine's army, because they are fighting the Russians. I would think that since you voiced the peril of even the potential for theoretical, as yet unidentified presence of neo-Nazis within the US military, you would share that same concern for their formal acceptance within Ukraine's army.

This has nothing to do with Russia. It is not an either-or choice. They are both worthy of condemnation, not sympathy, celebration, overlooking, or obfuscation.

Do you support US military aid going to the Azov Regiment ? ...even their latest new Battalion under training ?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -militias/ Headline :
Right-wing Azov Battalion emerges as a controversial defender of Ukraine

Militia with far-right views says it welcomes all volunteers, regardless of ideology, in the fight against Russia

[Typical Lax Dad]

It’s another way to attempt to build the case to let Russia do whatever they want wherever they want. That’s all.

Sympathizer.

We are about to hear a lot about the Azov Regiment, both for their holdout in Mariupol & in Putin's May 9th speech.
Let's see how much the msm tells us about their history & how much whitewash is applied.

Yes, there are a lot of sympathizers for the Azov Regiment. Some in this forum.

mmmm, weren't you one of the strongest deniers that we have nazis, white nationalists, in our own US military?

Seems to me that was the case, and yet here you are applying a very different standard when applied to people with a tremendously different history in their conflict with invaders from Russia.

To be clear, I'm not a "sympathizer" with nazis, anywhere, but there's no question who the fascist aggressors are in this conflict...and that's Putin's Russia.

Name the Nazi's & white nationalists that have been found within the US military. What has been their fate ? Compare that to a 2500 man unit, formally incorporated into the National Guard. It is ludicrous that you'd even attempt to make that connection.

You voiced your concern about even the possibility of white supremacists or neo-Nazis in the US military, yet you ignore or make excuses for them in Ukraine's army, because they are fighting the Russians. I would think that since you voiced the peril of even the potential for theoretical, as yet unidentified presence of neo-Nazis within the US military, you would share that same concern for their formal acceptance within Ukraine's army.

This has nothing to do with Russia. It is not an either-or choice. They are both worthy of condemnation, not sympathy, celebration, overlooking, or obfuscation.

Do you support US military aid going to the Azov Regiment ? ...even their latest new Battalion under training ?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -militias/ Headline :
Right-wing Azov Battalion emerges as a controversial defender of Ukraine

Militia with far-right views says it welcomes all volunteers, regardless of ideology, in the fight against Russia

your boys want to carry the fight against Americans…

[MDlaxfan76]

It’s another way to attempt to build the case to let Russia do whatever they want wherever they want. That’s all.

Sympathizer.

We are about to hear a lot about the Azov Regiment, both for their holdout in Mariupol & in Putin's May 9th speech.
Let's see how much the msm tells us about their history & how much whitewash is applied.

Yes, there are a lot of sympathizers for the Azov Regiment. Some in this forum.

mmmm, weren't you one of the strongest deniers that we have nazis, white nationalists, in our own US military?

Seems to me that was the case, and yet here you are applying a very different standard when applied to people with a tremendously different history in their conflict with invaders from Russia.

To be clear, I'm not a "sympathizer" with nazis, anywhere, but there's no question who the fascist aggressors are in this conflict...and that's Putin's Russia.

Name the Nazi's & white nationalists that have been found within the US military. What has been their fate ? Compare that to a 2500 man unit, formally incorporated into the National Guard. It is ludicrous that you'd even attempt to make that connection.

You voiced your concern about even the possibility of white supremacists or neo-Nazis in the US military, yet you ignore or make excuses for them in Ukraine's army, because they are fighting the Russians. I would think that since you voiced the peril of even the potential for theoretical, as yet unidentified presence of neo-Nazis within the US military, you would share that same concern for their formal acceptance within Ukraine's army.

This has nothing to do with Russia. It is not an either-or choice. They are both worthy of condemnation, not sympathy, celebration, overlooking, or obfuscation.

Do you support US military aid going to the Azov Regiment ? ...even their latest new Battalion under training ?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -militias/ Headline :
Right-wing Azov Battalion emerges as a controversial defender of Ukraine

Militia with far-right views says it welcomes all volunteers, regardless of ideology, in the fight against Russia

https://newrepublic.com/article/162400/ ... cy-problem

https://rollcall.com/2021/02/16/pentago ... -military/

https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... s-say.html

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... s-military

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-wis ... 6K20120821

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/ta ... -neo-nazis

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/i ... cna1010221

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... s-military

you want more?

You pooh poohed that the US had any issue at all. By contrast, I applauded our military for taking it seriously, just as I applauded DHS and FBI and DOJ for taking super seriously the issue of the threat of white nationalist domestic terrorism in the US...as well as their ties to international white nationalism in places in Eastern Europe like Belarus allied with Putin's Russia and various other fascist movements throughout Europe, again all allied with Putin's Russia.

Azov is max 2,500 men, more likely 1,000...and apparently max of that is 20% that could be called Neo-nazis. A few hundred men.

Yes, even that's not ok, certainly not in times when your country isn't being invaded by war criminals. But sure, enemy of my enemy when my country is invaded and bombarded...as Ukraine was in 2014 and ongoing.

[old salt]

Name the Nazi's & white nationalists that have been found within the US military. What has been their fate ?
Do you support US military aid going to the Azov Regiment ? ...even their latest new Battalion under training ?

you want more?
Azov is max 2,500 men, more likely 1,000...and apparently max of that is 20% that could be called Neo-nazis. A few hundred men.

No I don't want more. I want a straight answer from you to back up your claims about US military members.

You buy in to all the non-specific innuendo about US troops then minimize & try to explain away the specifics which have been reported about the Azov Regiment. You drew the comparison. Use the same criteria. Citing US vets, radicalized after leaving the service, is an irrelevant distraction.
I ask again, how many serving US military members have been identified, by name. Not some fuzzy estimates based on other criteria.

You claim the Azov Regiment has rehabilitated itself. That's a dubious claim based on the Wash Post article I linked above.
It's too long to quote the whole report but here are some relevant excerpts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -militias/

Right-wing Azov Battalion emerges as a controversial defender of Ukraine
Militia with far-right views says it welcomes all volunteers, regardless of ideology, in the fight against Russia

by Sudarsan Raghavan, Loveday Morris, Claire Parker and David L. Stern, April 6, 2022

Troops of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, which has been connected with a far-right ideology, trained in a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 24. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Heidi Levine/The Washington Post)

KYIV, Ukraine — Inside a warehouse, in a bustling section of this capital, the incessant cracking sound of gunfire echoed off walls. Men in olive-colored camouflage were training for war. Most wore helmets and bulletproof jackets. Some wore high-top sneakers. All clutched AK-47 rifles and waited for their turn to shoot at a round target 50 yards away.

Invisible, yet palpable, was the shadow cast over this new regiment, like every unit of the Azov Battalion. Alexi Suliyma knew about its ugly past, but he joined anyway. Two friends were in the force, and he felt the Azov would best train him to defend his motherland.

“These are guys who simply love their country and Ukrainian people,” said Suliyma, 23, a former construction worker. “I never knew them to be Nazis or fascists, never heard them make calls for the Third Reich.”

Of all the Ukrainian forces fighting the invading Russian military, the most controversial is the Azov Battalion. It is among Ukraine’s most adept military units and has battled Russian forces in key sites, including the besieged city of Mariupol and near the capital, Kyiv. With Russian forces withdrawing from areas north of Kyiv last week and possibly repositioning in southern and eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has declared as its primary focus, the Azov forces could grow in significance.

But the battalion’s far-right nationalist ideology has raised concerns that it is attracting extremists, including white supremacist neo-Nazis, who could pose a future threat... While they are now fighting for a Jewish president whose relatives were killed fighting the Nazis, they have continued to be fodder for Russian propaganda as Putin seeks to convince Russians that his costly invasion of Ukraine was necessary.

Yet interviews with Azov fighters and one of its founders, as well as experts who have tracked the battalion from its beginnings, provide a more nuanced picture of its current state, which is more complex than what is conventionally known.

The battalion’s own leaders and fighters concede that some extremists remain in their ranks, but it has evolved since its emergence in 2014 during the conflict in eastern Ukraine against Russian forces and Moscow-backed separatists.

Under pressure from U.S. and Ukrainian authorities, the Azov battalion has toned down its extremist elements. And the Ukrainian military has also become stronger in the past eight years and therefore less reliant on paramilitary groups. Moreover, today’s war against Russia is far different than in 2014, fueled less by political ideology than a sense of patriotism and moral outrage at Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, especially its civilian population. Extremists do not appear to make up a large part of the foreigners who have arrived here to take up arms against Russia, analysts said.

“You have fighters now coming from all over the world that are energized by what Putin has done,” said Colin P. Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm. “And so it’s not even that they’re in favor of one ideology or another — they’re just aghast by what they’ve seen the Russians doing.”

“That certainly wasn’t the same in 2014,” he added. “So while the far-right element is still a factor, I think it’s a much smaller part of the overall whole. It’s been diluted, in some respects.”

Analysts also noted that Ukraine’s far-right movement is not just small in Ukraine, but also is dwarfed by far-right movements in other parts of Europe.

In an interview, the force’s co-founder and top commander, Col. Andriy Biletskiy, did not dispute his far-right ultraconservative leanings or the presence of some extremists in his units. But he rejected the allegations of Nazism and white supremacist views, describing such charges as Russian propaganda.

“We don’t identify ourselves with the Nazi ideology,” said Biletskiy, 41. “We have people of conservative political views, and I see myself as such. But, as any person, I don’t want my views to be defined by others. I’m not a Nazi. We completely reject it.”

Michael Colborne, who monitors and researches the far right and wrote a book about the Azov, said that he “wouldn’t call it explicitly a neo-Nazi movement.”

“There are clearly neo-Nazis within its ranks,” said Colborne, author of “From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right.”

“There are elements in it who are, you know, neo-fascist and there are elements who are maybe more kind of old-school Ukrainian nationalist,” he said. “At its core, it’s hostile to liberal democracy. It’s hostile to every everything that comes with liberal democracy, minority rights, voting rights, things like that.”

In 2014, Biletskiy was elected to parliament, where he remained a lawmaker until 2019. In 2016, he created the far-right National Corps party, made up largely of Azov veterans.

The paramilitary unit was initially funded by wealthy Ukrainians and assisted by the nation’s then-interior minister, and the investment soon paid off. After the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Azov fighters fended off Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and kept the strategic port city of Mariupol in Ukrainian hands. “These are our best warriors,” Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, said publicly at the time.

Transnational support for Azov has been wide, and Ukraine has emerged as a new hub for the far right across the world. Both the Ukrainian and Russian sides have attracted neo-Nazis and far-right extremists, although Moscow’s use of them has attracted far less attention in the Western media. Men from across three continents, including members of American and European extremist groups, have been documented to join the Azov units to seek combat experience, engage in similar ideology and as a training ground for operations in their home countries.

Even as they have consistently denied any Nazi affiliations, their uniforms and tattoos on many of their fighters display a number of fascist and Nazi symbols, including swastikas and SS symbols. In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time, told USA Today that 10 to 20 percent of Azov’s recruits were Nazis.

In the following years, U.N. human rights officials accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian laws; both the United States and Canada declared that its forces would not train the Azov fighters because of the unit’s links to neo-Nazis, though Washington has since lifted the ban. Some U.S. lawmakers have continued to urge for Azov to be designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Facebook, too, designated the Azov as a “dangerous organization” and banned it from its platforms two years ago. But after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would make “a narrow exception for praise of the Azov regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine national guard.”

The social media giant stressed that it had not lifted the ban on “all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise, support, or representation of the Azov regiment.” Today, the Azov battalion is getting much praise for strong stand against Russia in Mariupol. The battalion’s various Telegram channels post news of their exploits in addition to battlefield videos, detailing their victories in gruesome detail.

The battalion has more than a thousand fighters in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro, and smaller units in six other cities and towns across the nation, said Biletskiy, who estimated the total number of Azov forces at little more than 10,000. In Mariupol alone, he said last week, there were roughly 3,000 fighters taking on 14,000 Russian troops “fighting on the ground, on water and in the Navy SEALs.”

If the war drags on, the extremists’ presence and influence among the Ukrainians, however minute it is now, could grow, analysts said. Foreigners who joined the fight for other reasons could become radicalized from fighting alongside extremist individuals, the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome or frustration at Western countries for not doing more to help Ukraine.

“Do these people go back to their countries of origin, particularly in Europe, with a newfound anger against their host nation governments?” asked Clarke of the Soufan Center.

Kyrylo, 35, a bespectacled soldier who wears an Azov patch on his sleeve, said he joined the nationwide call to arms because he wanted to protect his home city of Dnipro. He enlisted in Azov because he shared its far-right nationalist ideology. Before the war he gave “private historical lectures” for the group and previously served on Dnipro’s city council, he said.

“People who come to us already have a specific set of values,” he said, but he claimed that Azov is not neo-Nazi. “Would Nazis be fighting for the liberal democratic government in Ukraine?”

Biletskiy said they are trying to weed out the neo-Nazi tattoos and other symbols among Azov fighters, but in the current war he cannot afford to lose any soldier because of political ideology, left or right.

“Every soldier that fights for Ukraine is of value now,” he said. “And of value to the Western world, because if Ukraine will break, the next in trouble will be the collective West.”

Not exactly a ban or a thorough purging of the ranks.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Name the Nazi's & white nationalists that have been found within the US military. What has been their fate ?
Do you support US military aid going to the Azov Regiment ? ...even their latest new Battalion under training ?

you want more?
Azov is max 2,500 men, more likely 1,000...and apparently max of that is 20% that could be called Neo-nazis. A few hundred men.

No I don't want more. I want a straight answer from you to back up your claims about US military members.

You buy in to all the non-specific innuendo about US troops then minimize & try to explain away the specifics which have been reported about the Azov Regiment. You drew the comparison. Use the same criteria. Citing US vets, radicalized after leaving the service, is an irrelevant distraction.
I ask again, how many serving US military members have been identified, by name. Not some fuzzy estimates based on other criteria.

You claim the Azov Regiment has rehabilitated itself. That's a dubious claim based on recent the Wash Post article I linked.
It's too long to quote the whole report but I'll edit in some relevant excerpts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -militias/

Right-wing Azov Battalion emerges as a controversial defender of Ukraine

Militia with far-right views says it welcomes all volunteers, regardless of ideology, in the fight against Russia

Troops of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, which has been connected with a far-right ideology, trained in a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 24. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Heidi Levine/The Washington Post)

KYIV, Ukraine — Inside a warehouse, in a bustling section of this capital, the incessant cracking sound of gunfire echoed off walls. Men in olive-colored camouflage were training for war. Most wore helmets and bulletproof jackets. Some wore high-top sneakers. All clutched AK-47 rifles and waited for their turn to shoot at a round target 50 yards away.

Invisible, yet palpable, was the shadow cast over this new regiment, like every unit of the Azov Battalion. Alexi Suliyma knew about its ugly past, but he joined anyway. Two friends were in the force, and he felt the Azov would best train him to defend his motherland.

“These are guys who simply love their country and Ukrainian people,” said Suliyma, 23, a former construction worker. “I never knew them to be Nazis or fascists, never heard them make calls for the Third Reich.”

Of all the Ukrainian forces fighting the invading Russian military, the most controversial is the Azov Battalion. It is among Ukraine’s most adept military units and has battled Russian forces in key sites, including the besieged city of Mariupol and near the capital, Kyiv. With Russian forces withdrawing from areas north of Kyiv last week and possibly repositioning in southern and eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has declared as its primary focus, the Azov forces could grow in significance.

But the battalion’s far-right nationalist ideology has raised concerns that it is attracting extremists, including white supremacist neo-Nazis, who could pose a future threat... While they are now fighting for a Jewish president whose relatives were killed fighting the Nazis, they have continued to be fodder for Russian propaganda as Putin seeks to convince Russians that his costly invasion of Ukraine was necessary.

Yet interviews with Azov fighters and one of its founders, as well as experts who have tracked the battalion from its beginnings, provide a more nuanced picture of its current state, which is more complex than what is conventionally known.

The battalion’s own leaders and fighters concede that some extremists remain in their ranks, but it has evolved since its emergence in 2014 during the conflict in eastern Ukraine against Russian forces and Moscow-backed separatists.

Under pressure from U.S. and Ukrainian authorities, the Azov battalion has toned down its extremist elements. And the Ukrainian military has also become stronger in the past eight years and therefore less reliant on paramilitary groups. Moreover, today’s war against Russia is far different than in 2014, fueled less by political ideology than a sense of patriotism and moral outrage at Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, especially its civilian population. Extremists do not appear to make up a large part of the foreigners who have arrived here to take up arms against Russia, analysts said.

“You have fighters now coming from all over the world that are energized by what Putin has done,” said Colin P. Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm. “And so it’s not even that they’re in favor of one ideology or another — they’re just aghast by what they’ve seen the Russians doing.”

“That certainly wasn’t the same in 2014,” he added. “So while the far-right element is still a factor, I think it’s a much smaller part of the overall whole. It’s been diluted, in some respects.”

Analysts also noted that Ukraine’s far-right movement is not just small in Ukraine, but also is dwarfed by far-right movements in other parts of Europe.

In an interview, the force’s co-founder and top commander, Col. Andriy Biletskiy, did not dispute his far-right ultraconservative leanings or the presence of some extremists in his units. But he rejected the allegations of Nazism and white supremacist views, describing such charges as Russian propaganda.

“We don’t identify ourselves with the Nazi ideology,” said Biletskiy, 41. “We have people of conservative political views, and I see myself as such. But, as any person, I don’t want my views to be defined by others. I’m not a Nazi. We completely reject it.”

Michael Colborne, who monitors and researches the far right and wrote a book about the Azov, said that he “wouldn’t call it explicitly a neo-Nazi movement.”

“There are clearly neo-Nazis within its ranks,” said Colborne, author of “From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right.”

“There are elements in it who are, you know, neo-fascist and there are elements who are maybe more kind of old-school Ukrainian nationalist,” he said. “At its core, it’s hostile to liberal democracy. It’s hostile to every everything that comes with liberal democracy, minority rights, voting rights, things like that.”

In 2014, Biletskiy was elected to parliament, where he remained a lawmaker until 2019. In 2016, he created the far-right National Corps party, made up largely of Azov veterans.

The paramilitary unit was initially funded by wealthy Ukrainians and assisted by the nation’s then-interior minister, and the investment soon paid off. After the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Azov fighters fended off Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and kept the strategic port city of Mariupol in Ukrainian hands. “These are our best warriors,” Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, said publicly at the time.

Transnational support for Azov has been wide, and Ukraine has emerged as a new hub for the far right across the world. Both the Ukrainian and Russian sides have attracted neo-Nazis and far-right extremists, although Moscow’s use of them has attracted far less attention in the Western media. Men from across three continents, including members of American and European extremist groups, have been documented to join the Azov units to seek combat experience, engage in similar ideology and as a training ground for operations in their home countries.

Even as they have consistently denied any Nazi affiliations, their uniforms and tattoos on many of their fighters display a number of fascist and Nazi symbols, including swastikas and SS symbols. In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time, told USA Today that 10 to 20 percent of Azov’s recruits were Nazis.

In the following years, U.N. human rights officials accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian laws; both the United States and Canada declared that its forces would not train the Azov fighters because of the unit’s links to neo-Nazis, though Washington has since lifted the ban. Some U.S. lawmakers have continued to urge for Azov to be designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Facebook, too, designated the Azov as a “dangerous organization” and banned it from its platforms two years ago. But after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would make “a narrow exception for praise of the Azov regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine national guard.”

The social media giant stressed that it had not lifted the ban on “all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise, support, or representation of the Azov regiment.” Today, the Azov battalion is getting much praise for strong stand against Russia in Mariupol. The battalion’s various Telegram channels post news of their exploits in addition to battlefield videos, detailing their victories in gruesome detail.

The battalion has more than a thousand fighters in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro, and smaller units in six other cities and towns across the nation, said Biletskiy, who estimated the total number of Azov forces at little more than 10,000. In Mariupol alone, he said last week, there were roughly 3,000 fighters taking on 14,000 Russian troops “fighting on the ground, on water and in the Navy SEALs.”

If the war drags on, the extremists’ presence and influence among the Ukrainians, however minute it is now, could grow, analysts said. Foreigners who joined the fight for other reasons could become radicalized from fighting alongside extremist individuals, the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome or frustration at Western countries for not doing more to help Ukraine.

“Do these people go back to their countries of origin, particularly in Europe, with a newfound anger against their host nation governments?” asked Clarke of the Soufan Center.

Kyrylo, 35, a bespectacled soldier who wears an Azov patch on his sleeve, said he joined the nationwide call to arms because he wanted to protect his home city of Dnipro. He enlisted in Azov because he shared its far-right nationalist ideology. Before the war he gave “private historical lectures” for the group and previously served on Dnipro’s city council, he said.

“People who come to us already have a specific set of values,” he said, but he claimed that Azov is not neo-Nazi. “Would Nazis be fighting for the liberal democratic government in Ukraine?”

Biletskiy said they are trying to weed out the neo-Nazi tattoos and other symbols among Azov fighters, but in the current war he cannot afford to lose any soldier because of political ideology, left or right.

“Every soldier that fights for Ukraine is of value now,” he said. “And of value to the Western world, because if Ukraine will break, the next in trouble will be the collective West.”

Not exactly a ban or a thorough purging of the ranks.

[MDlaxfan76]

Try reading this all the way through, Salty.
Specific names, and it's clear that there isn't a ban, a 'purging', of such in our military either.
Openly white supremacist, neo-Nazi.

https://newrepublic.com/article/162400/ ... cy-problem

I doubt very much that we have as high a percentage of such in our military as do the Ukrainians (maybe 0.2%), much less a single regiment with a percentage as high as 20% as described as still possible of Azov.

It's quite likely that most such in the Ukrainian military are concentrated in that single regiment...funny that you did not highlight their specific rejection of nazism, while they acknowledge their 'conservative' political lean.

But note that Azov, in its entirety, is just 1% or likely less of the Ukrainian military, which itself has greatly swelled in the last few months.

You simply aren't credible on this topic, salty, having made such a fuss of about any concern about white supremacism in the US military.

[MDlaxfan76]

Let me highlight some different parts...

Name the Nazi's & white nationalists that have been found within the US military. What has been their fate ?
Do you support US military aid going to the Azov Regiment ? ...even their latest new Battalion under training ?

you want more?
Azov is max 2,500 men, more likely 1,000...and apparently max of that is 20% that could be called Neo-nazis. A few hundred men.

No I don't want more. I want a straight answer from you to back up your claims about US military members.

You buy in to all the non-specific innuendo about US troops then minimize & try to explain away the specifics which have been reported about the Azov Regiment. You drew the comparison. Use the same criteria. Citing US vets, radicalized after leaving the service, is an irrelevant distraction.
I ask again, how many serving US military members have been identified, by name. Not some fuzzy estimates based on other criteria.

You claim the Azov Regiment has rehabilitated itself. That's a dubious claim based on the Wash Post article I linked above.
It's too long to quote the whole report but here are some relevant excerpts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -militias/

Right-wing Azov Battalion emerges as a controversial defender of Ukraine
Militia with far-right views says it welcomes all volunteers, regardless of ideology, in the fight against Russia

by Sudarsan Raghavan, Loveday Morris, Claire Parker and David L. Stern, April 6, 2022

Troops of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, which has been connected with a far-right ideology, trained in a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 24. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Heidi Levine/The Washington Post)

KYIV, Ukraine — Inside a warehouse, in a bustling section of this capital, the incessant cracking sound of gunfire echoed off walls. Men in olive-colored camouflage were training for war. Most wore helmets and bulletproof jackets. Some wore high-top sneakers. All clutched AK-47 rifles and waited for their turn to shoot at a round target 50 yards away.

Invisible, yet palpable, was the shadow cast over this new regiment, like every unit of the Azov Battalion. Alexi Suliyma knew about its ugly past, but he joined anyway. Two friends were in the force, and he felt the Azov would best train him to defend his motherland.

“These are guys who simply love their country and Ukrainian people,” said Suliyma, 23, a former construction worker. “I never knew them to be Nazis or fascists, never heard them make calls for the Third Reich.”

Of all the Ukrainian forces fighting the invading Russian military, the most controversial is the Azov Battalion. It is among Ukraine’s most adept military units and has battled Russian forces in key sites, including the besieged city of Mariupol and near the capital, Kyiv. With Russian forces withdrawing from areas north of Kyiv last week and possibly repositioning in southern and eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has declared as its primary focus, the Azov forces could grow in significance.

But the battalion’s far-right nationalist ideology has raised concerns that it is attracting extremists, including white supremacist neo-Nazis, who could pose a future threat... While they are now fighting for a Jewish president whose relatives were killed fighting the Nazis, they have continued to be fodder for Russian propaganda as Putin seeks to convince Russians that his costly invasion of Ukraine was necessary.

Yet interviews with Azov fighters and one of its founders, as well as experts who have tracked the battalion from its beginnings, provide a more nuanced picture of its current state, which is more complex than what is conventionally known.

The battalion’s own leaders and fighters concede that some extremists remain in their ranks, but it has evolved since its emergence in 2014 during the conflict in eastern Ukraine against Russian forces and Moscow-backed separatists.

Under pressure from U.S. and Ukrainian authorities, the Azov battalion has toned down its extremist elements. And the Ukrainian military has also become stronger in the past eight years and therefore less reliant on paramilitary groups. Moreover, today’s war against Russia is far different than in 2014, fueled less by political ideology than a sense of patriotism and moral outrage at Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, especially its civilian population. Extremists do not appear to make up a large part of the foreigners who have arrived here to take up arms against Russia, analysts said.

“You have fighters now coming from all over the world that are energized by what Putin has done,” said Colin P. Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm. “And so it’s not even that they’re in favor of one ideology or another — they’re just aghast by what they’ve seen the Russians doing.”

“That certainly wasn’t the same in 2014,” he added. “So while the far-right element is still a factor, I think it’s a much smaller part of the overall whole. It’s been diluted, in some respects.”

Analysts also noted that Ukraine’s far-right movement is not just small in Ukraine, but also is dwarfed by far-right movements in other parts of Europe.

In an interview, the force’s co-founder and top commander, Col. Andriy Biletskiy, did not dispute his far-right ultraconservative leanings or the presence of some extremists in his units. But he rejected the allegations of Nazism and white supremacist views, describing such charges as Russian propaganda.

“We don’t identify ourselves with the Nazi ideology,” said Biletskiy, 41. “We have people of conservative political views, and I see myself as such. But, as any person, I don’t want my views to be defined by others. I’m not a Nazi. We completely reject it.”

Michael Colborne, who monitors and researches the far right and wrote a book about the Azov, said that he “wouldn’t call it explicitly a neo-Nazi movement.”

“There are clearly neo-Nazis within its ranks,” said Colborne, author of “From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right.”

“There are elements in it who are, you know, neo-fascist and there are elements who are maybe more kind of old-school Ukrainian nationalist,” he said. “At its core, it’s hostile to liberal democracy. It’s hostile to every everything that comes with liberal democracy, minority rights, voting rights, things like that.”

In 2014, Biletskiy was elected to parliament, where he remained a lawmaker until 2019. In 2016, he created the far-right National Corps party, made up largely of Azov veterans.

The paramilitary unit was initially funded by wealthy Ukrainians and assisted by the nation’s then-interior minister, and the investment soon paid off. After the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Azov fighters fended off Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and kept the strategic port city of Mariupol in Ukrainian hands. “These are our best warriors,” Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, said publicly at the time.

Transnational support for Azov has been wide, and Ukraine has emerged as a new hub for the far right across the world. Both the Ukrainian and Russian sides have attracted neo-Nazis and far-right extremists, although Moscow’s use of them has attracted far less attention in the Western media. Men from across three continents, including members of American and European extremist groups, have been documented to join the Azov units to seek combat experience, engage in similar ideology and as a training ground for operations in their home countries.

Even as they have consistently denied any Nazi affiliations, their uniforms and tattoos on many of their fighters display a number of fascist and Nazi symbols, including swastikas and SS symbols. In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time, told USA Today that 10 to 20 percent of Azov’s recruits were Nazis.

In the following years, U.N. human rights officials accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian laws; both the United States and Canada declared that its forces would not train the Azov fighters because of the unit’s links to neo-Nazis, though Washington has since lifted the ban. Some U.S. lawmakers have continued to urge for Azov to be designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Facebook, too, designated the Azov as a “dangerous organization” and banned it from its platforms two years ago. But after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would make “a narrow exception for praise of the Azov regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine national guard.”

The social media giant stressed that it had not lifted the ban on “all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise, support, or representation of the Azov regiment.” Today, the Azov battalion is getting much praise for strong stand against Russia in Mariupol. The battalion’s various Telegram channels post news of their exploits in addition to battlefield videos, detailing their victories in gruesome detail.

The battalion has more than a thousand fighters in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro, and smaller units in six other cities and towns across the nation, said Biletskiy, who estimated the total number of Azov forces at little more than 10,000. In Mariupol alone, he said last week, there were roughly 3,000 fighters taking on 14,000 Russian troops “fighting on the ground, on water and in the Navy SEALs.”

If the war drags on, the extremists’ presence and influence among the Ukrainians, however minute it is now, could grow, analysts said. Foreigners who joined the fight for other reasons could become radicalized from fighting alongside extremist individuals, the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome or frustration at Western countries for not doing more to help Ukraine.

“Do these people go back to their countries of origin, particularly in Europe, with a newfound anger against their host nation governments?” asked Clarke of the Soufan Center.

Kyrylo, 35, a bespectacled soldier who wears an Azov patch on his sleeve, said he joined the nationwide call to arms because he wanted to protect his home city of Dnipro. He enlisted in Azov because he shared its far-right nationalist ideology. Before the war he gave “private historical lectures” for the group and previously served on Dnipro’s city council, he said.

“People who come to us already have a specific set of values,” he said, but he claimed that Azov is not neo-Nazi. “Would Nazis be fighting for the liberal democratic government in Ukraine?”

Biletskiy said they are trying to weed out the neo-Nazi tattoos and other symbols among Azov fighters, but in the current war he cannot afford to lose any soldier because of political ideology, left or right.

“Every soldier that fights for Ukraine is of value now,” he said. “And of value to the Western world, because if Ukraine will break, the next in trouble will be the collective West.”

Not exactly a ban or a thorough purging of the ranks.

[old salt]

Azov Regiment Commander publicly questions the decisions of the Commander of the Ukrainian Marines in the defense of Mariupol.

https://news.yahoo.com/azov-regiment-be ... 49791.html

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/05/8/7344872/

[NattyBohChamps04]

Imagine if a good chunk of SEALs were gonna go against the chain of command and get tossed out because of their stance on something as stupid as a safe vaccine.

We'd hear about that insubordination for months and years, right?

[MDlaxfan76]

Azov Regiment Commander publicly questions the decisions of the Commander of the Ukrainian Marines in the defense of Mariupol.

https://news.yahoo.com/azov-regiment-be ... 49791.html

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/05/8/7344872/

sounds like the critique may actually be fair, though we're not hearing both sides of the marine commander's decision; BTW, note marine commander of one battalion, the 36th; why are you trying to make this sound like an issue?...Pravda is one of your sources?

I appreciate your posting this, but not sure why the edge you seem to be implying...

[old salt]

Azov Regiment Commander publicly questions the decisions of the Commander of the Ukrainian Marines in the defense of Mariupol.

https://news.yahoo.com/azov-regiment-be ... 49791.html

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/05/8/7344872/

sounds like the critique may actually be fair, though we're not hearing both sides of the marine commander's decision; BTW, note marine commander of one battalion, the 36th; why are you trying to make this sound like an issue?...Pravda is one of your sources?

I appreciate your posting this, but not sure why the edge you seem to be implying...

Ukrayinska Pravda. A completely different, respected, pro-Ukrainian publication.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/29/ ... eir-lives/

Maybe a fair critique or maybe they should have withdrawn before getting trapped, so they could stay in the fight.
Either way -- it's not reassuring to see them publicly take issue with the chain of command, not just that Marine commander.
They question the decisions regarding the defense of the entire land bridge, all the way from the Russian invasion from Crimea.

[old salt]

Thanks to Turkey's enforcement of the Montreux Convention at the beginning of the war, the naval war has been greatly limited, to Russia's disadvantage. This was a good predictor :
https://ms-my.facebook.com/IndiaToday/v ... 241033698/

[old salt]

Imagine if a good chunk of SEALs were gonna go against the chain of command and get tossed out because of their stance on something as stupid as a safe vaccine.

We'd hear about that insubordination for months and years, right?

...comparing that to tactical decisions which can determine the outcome of a war is the height of superficial woke whataboutism.

Look at the fate of the USMC LtCol who questioned how we botched our bail out from Kabul.

How many unvaxxed SEALs died from covid ? How many TR crewmembers ?
Sometimes the troops in the field know better than the politicians in uniform inside the E ring.

How 'bout combining the unvaxxed with the neo-Nazis in one regiment & using them as cannon fodder. From the woke art of war.

[cradleandshoot]

Imagine if a good chunk of SEALs were gonna go against the chain of command and get tossed out because of their stance on something as stupid as a safe vaccine.

We'd hear about that insubordination for months and years, right?

...comparing that to tactical decisions which can determine the outcome of a war is the height of superficial woke whataboutism.

Look at the fate of the USMC LtCol who questioned how we botched our bail out from Kabul.

How many unvaxxed SEALs died from covid ? How many TR crewmembers ?
Sometimes the troops in the field know better than the politicians in uniform inside the E ring.

How 'bout combining the unvaxxed with the neo-Nazis in one regiment & using them as cannon fodder. From the woke art of war.

+1, outstanding post OS. If some of your hecklers here actually read and took what you say to heart perhaps their opinions could be modified. I doubt that will ever happen. Your words are very powerful and true.

[old salt]

DNI Haynes before SASC. (automated transcript of closed captioning)

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5014371/ ... d-conflict
U.S. Believes Russian President Putin Preparing for Prolonged Conflict
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine and that victory in the Donbas region is unlikely to end the war, which is now in its third month. She says President Putin is focused on developing and controlling a land bridge from the Donbas to Transistria, but will likely require some military mobilization in order to maintain it. Director Haines says the Russian leader is more willing "to endure challenges than his adversaries and is probably counting on U.S. and EU resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy prices get worse." Haines also warns of possible flashpoints in the weeks and months ahead as Russia seeks to interdict western security assistance to Ukrainian forces. And she says that Russia is likely to continue using nuclear rhetoric to deter the U.S. and its allies but does not envision him using nuclear weapons...


...OWN MILITARY PERFORMANCE REVEALED A NUMBER OF SIGNIFICANT INTERNAL CHALLENGES, FORCING THEM TO ADJUST THEIR INITIAL MILITARY OBJECTIVES, FULL BACK FROM KYIV AND FOCUS ON THE DONBAS. THE NEXT MONTH OR TWO OF FIGHTING WILL BE SIGNIFICANT, AS THE RUSSIANS ATTEMPT TO REINVIGORATE THEIR EFFORTS BUT, EVEN IF THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL, WE ARE NOT CONFIDENT THAT THE FIGHT OF THE DONBAS WILL EFFECTIVELY END THE WAR. WE ASSESS THAT PRESIDENT PUTIN IS PREPARING FOR PROLONGED CONFLICT IN UKRAINE, DURING WHICH HE STILL INTENDS TO ACHIEVE GOALS BEYOND THE DONBAS. WE ASSESS THAT PUTIN'S STRATEGIC GOALS HAVE PROBABLY NOT CHANGED, SUGGESTING HE REGARDS THE DECISION IN LATE MARCH TO REFOCUS FORCES ON THE DONBAS AS ONLY A TEMPORARY SHIFT TO REGAIN THE INITIATIVE AFTER THE RUSSIAN MILITARY'S FAILURE TO CAPTURE KYIV. IN HIS CURRENT NEAR TERM MILITARY OBJECTIONS ARE TO CAPTURE THE 2 0BLASTS IN LUHANSK AND DONETSK WITH A BUFFER ZONE, ENCIRCLE FORCES FROM THE NORTH TO THE SOUTH OF THE DONBAS. IN ORDER TO CRUSH THE MOST CAPABLE AND WELL EQUIPPED UKRAINIAN FORCES WHO ARE FIGHTING TO HOLD THE LINE OF THE EAST, CONSOLIDATE THE CONTROL OF THE LAND BRIDGE RUSSIA HAS ESTABLISHED FROM CRIMEA TO THE DONBAS, OCCUPY KHERSON AND THE WATER SOURCE FOR CRIMEA *, TO THE NORTH. WE ALSO SEE INDICATIONS THAT THE RUSSIAN MILITARY WANTS TO EXTEND THE LAND BRIDGE TO TRANSNISTRIA . WHILE THE RUSSIAN FORCES MAY BE CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING MANY OF THESE NEAR TERM GOALS IN THE COMING MONTHS, WE BELIEVE THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO EXPAND CONTROL OVER A LAND BRIDGE THAT EXTENDS TO TRANSNISTRIA AND ODESSA WITHOUT LAUNCHING SOME FORM OF MOBILIZATION. IT IS INCREASINGLY UNLIKELY THAT THEY WILL BE ABLE TO HAVE CONTROL OVER BOTH OBLASTS AND THE BUFFERS AND ODESSA IN THE COMING WEEKS. BUT PUTIN MOST LIKELY ALSO JUDGES THAT RUSSIA HAS A GREATER ABILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO ENDURE MORE CHALLENGES THAN HIS ADVERSARIES. AND HE IS PROBABLY COUNTING ON U.S. AND EU RESOLVE TO WEAKEN AS ENERGY PRICES GETS WORSE. MOREOVER, AS BOTH RUSSIA AND UKRAINE BELIEVE THEY CAN CONTINUE TO MAKE PROGRESS MILITARILY WE DO NOT SEE A VIABLE NEGOTIATING PATH MOVING FORWARD, AT LEAST IN THE SHORT TERM. THE ANSWER NATURE OF THE BATTLE, WHICH IS DEVELOPING INTO A WAR OF ATTRITION COMBINED WITH THE REALITY THAT PUTIN FACES A MISMATCH BETWEEN HIS AMBITIONS AND RUSSIA'S CURRENT CONVENTIONAL MILITARY CAPABILITIES, LIKELY MEANS THE NEXT FEW MONTHS COULD SEE US MOVING ALONG A MORE UNPREDICTABLE AND POTENTIALLY ESCALATORY TRAJECTORY. AT THE VERY LEAST, WE BELIEVE THE DICHOTOMY WILL USHER IN A PERIOD OF MORE AD HOC DECISION-MAKING IN RUSSIA. BOTH WITH RESPECT TO THE DOMESTIC ADJUSTMENTS REQUIRED TO SUSTAIN THIS PUSH, AS WELL AS THE MILITARY CONFLICT WITH UKRAINE AND THE. WEST THE CURRENT TREND INCREASES THE LIKELIHOOD THAT PRESIDENT PUTIN WILL TURN TO MORE DRASTIC MEANS, INCLUDING IMPOSING MARTIAL LAW, REORIENTING INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION, OR POTENTIALLY ESCALATORY MILITARY PRODUCTIONS TO FREE UP THE RESOURCES NEEDED TO ACHIEVE HIS OBJECTIVES AS THE CONFLICT DRAGS ON, OR IF HE PERCIEVES THAT RUSSIA IS LOSING IN UKRAINE. THE MOST LIKELY FLASH POINTS FOR ESCALATION IN THE COMING WEEKS ARE AROUND INCREASING RUSSIAN ATTEMPTS TO INTERJECT RUSSIAN SECURITY ASSISTANCE. RETALIATION FOR SANCTIONS OR THREATS TO THE REGIME AT HOME. WE BELIEVE THAT MOSCOW CONTINUES TO USE NUCLEAR THREATS TO DETER THE UNITED STATES AND THE WEST FROM INCREASING AID TO THE UKRAINE OR HAVE EXTENDED WESTERN GOALS IN THE CONFLICT. IF PUTIN PERCIEVES THAT THE UNITED STATES IS IGNORING HIS THREATS HE MAY HAVE TO SIGNAL TO WASHINGTON THE SUPPORT TO UKRAINE BY AUTHORIZING ANOTHER LARGE NUCLEAR EXERCISE. THAT INVOLVES ANOTHER DISPERSAL OF STRATEGIC SUBMARINES. WE OTHERWISE CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THAT PRESIDENT PUTIN WOULD PROBABLY ONLY AUTHORIZE THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IF HE PERCEIVED AND EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE RUSSIAN STATE OR REGIME. BUT, WE WILL BE REMAIN VIGILANT IN MONITORING EVERY ASPECT OF RUSSIA'S STRATEGIC NUCLEAR FORCES. WITH TENSIONS THIS HIGH

* water source for Crimea = the North Crimea canal. It begins just E of Kherson, in the land bridge, starting on the S bank of the Dneiper River..

[old salt]

Interesting game that Macron is playing.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022 ... in-ukraine

https://www.axios.com/2022/05/09/macron ... ip-decades