Commander of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion Andriy Biletsky told the Financial Times in a recent interview that many in the regiment are nationalists, and so are the majority of Ukrainians, according to him.
In an article brazenly titled, “Don’t confuse patriotism and Nazism”, FT appears to be whitewashing the Nazi battalion, citing a Vienna-based Ukrainian expert who claims today's Azov is not the same it was before. But, ironically, its commander's words state otherwise.
According to Biletsky, most Azov members are “patriotic, many of them are nationalists. But the majority of Ukrainians today are nationalists.” He then reportedly cited Stepan Bandera, the infamous Nazi collaborator during WWII who is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Ukrainians, Jews and Poles. In 2020, the CIA published docs in which a socialist publication described Bandera as “the Ukrainian fascist and Hitler’s professional spy.”
Judging by his claim, it is the Azov leader who confuses patriotism with Nazism, and blindly believes being a nationalist is the same thing as being patriotic.
Biletsky said that the Azov, founded by white supremacists, was “the spine of Mariupol’s defences,” adding that there were about 1,500 nationalists in the city and thousands more in total within the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), including more than 1,000 in Kharkov.
He added that there are also foreign nationals who are also fighting in the regiment.
There is evidence of Azov members, who have engaged in hostilities against the people of Donbas, committing outright war crimes, including kidnapping, torture and mass looting, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported in 2016. It has also been one of the primary tools used by the Kiev government in its crackdown against anti-Maidan protesters, who opposed the US-backed coup in Ukraine.
The Russian envoy to the UN called on the international community to address the shocking crimes committed by nationalist battalions against its own civilians in Mariupol, which include torturing captives to death in cellars and carving swastikas into their dead bodies. But Western media have chosen to “gracefully” sidestep this unpleasant reality.
Screenshot of March 18 tweet by Glenn Greenwald
© Photo : Twitter/ @ggreenwald