Quote (Santara @ Apr 11 2022 06:01pm)
This is where I tell you it's dumb to act as if the presence of Nazis in Ukraine is a casus belli when Russia is employing a horde of them to prosecute the war.
Wagner is made up of mercenaries. I think you have an inaccurate take on what their motivations are. They are washed up mostly Russian soldiers who kill for hire. Just like they were doing recently in Mali. Cutthroats motivated by mostly money.
Now since we're taking about Mariupol here specifically lets look at the Azov battalion bio:
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On 14 October 2014, Azov Battalion servicemen took part in a march to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Kyiv organized by the Right Sector.[50]
Azov soldiers in a military parade in Mariupol, 2021.
On 31 October 2014, deputy commander of the Azov Battalion Vadym Troyan was appointed head of Kyiv Oblast (province) police (this police force has no jurisdiction over the city of Kyiv).[51]
On 11 November 2014, the Azov Battalion was officially incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine.[9]
As of late March 2015, after a February ceasefire agreement, the battalion continued to defend Mariupol and fight separatists in Shyrokyne. Biletsky saw the ceasefire as "appeasing the aggressor".[39]
On 29 July 2015, the Azov Battalion and other volunteer fighters left their positions in Shyrokyne and were replaced with a unit of active duty marines. The decision to pull them out from the village was met with protests from residents of nearby Mariupol, who feared that the withdrawal would lead to Russian separatists quickly retaking the village and shelling the city again.[52][53]
Beginning in 2015, Azov has organized summer camps where children and teenagers receive combat training mixed with lectures on Ukrainian nationalism.[29][16]
On 27 April 2016, 300 troops and light-armored vehicles from the regiment were assigned to Odessa to safeguard public order after Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili wrote in social media about a rash of pro-Russian "titushki" attacks on civilians.[54] In 2017, the size of the regiment was estimated at more than 2,500 members.[27]
In March 2022, Deutsche Welle reported that the battalion was the primary unit defending Mariupol in the siege of Mariupol.[55] The battalion was noted for well-produced drone videos and other media of its military activities.[13] On 19 March 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded a Hero of Ukraine title to its commander in Mariupol, Major Prokopenko Denys Hennadiyovych.[56]
International reception
Azov parading a KrAZ Shrek MRAP in 2021.
U.S. arms and training
In March 2015, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in the Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[57][58] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its neo-Nazi background.[59][60] However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015,[59] with James Carden writing in The Nation that the "House Defense Appropriations Committee came under pressure from the Pentagon to remove the Conyers-Yoho amendment from the text of the bill."[61]
Azov published a media release on its website on 20 November 2017 stating that it had met with a foreign delegation of officers from the United States Armed Forces and Canadian Armed Forces on 16 November.[62][third-party source needed] Writing for Jacobin, Branko Marcetic says that members of Azov have been pictured meeting with U.S. military and NATO officials.[63]
US Democrats request for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organization
In October 2019, members of the US House of Representatives from the Democratic Party requested that the Azov Battalion and two other far-right groups be classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US State Department, citing recent acts of right-wing violence such as the Christchurch mosque shootings earlier that year. The request spurred protests by Azov's supporters in Ukraine.[64][65][66]
In February 2020, the Atlantic Council published an article by Anton Shekhovtsov who argued that Azov should not be designated a foreign terrorist organization, because it was now "a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard that is part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs" that the links with Brenton Tarrant[clarification needed] had been overdone, and cited a Federal Court decision, which was detrimental to the terrorist theory.
Azov Battalion patrolling in an improvised armored vehicle, circa 2014.
The Jerusalem Post carried an article in October 2021 that cited an Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies report about another far-right group, Centuria, which noted that it is "led by people with ties to" the Azov movement and that its members received training from Western countries while at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy (NAA). "One NAA cadet was apparently involved as a firearms instructor with an Azov-linked far-right group that the United Jewish Community of Ukraine accused of spreading antisemitic propaganda in 2021."[67][undue weight? – discu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion