A copy of "Mein Kampf*," the political manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, has been discovered at an Azov base in Mariupol, a Sputnik correspondent reports.
According to the correspondent, a Russian-language copy of the book was found at the barracks where the neo-Nazi battalion was stationed.
Azov members have been widely accused of committing war crimes in Donbass, including kidnapping, torture and mass looting. The symbolism used by some of the groups directly involved in the conflict bears a strong resemblance to Nazi symbols. The New York Times previously referred to them as "openly neo-Nazi" in 2015, but suddenly changed its rhetoric this year (guess why).
Mein Kampf, published in 1925, was where Hitler's ideology, which formed the basis for the atrocities and war crimes that later characterized his time in power, began to take form. The 1945-46 Nuremberg international trial charged the former leadership of Nazi Germany with a litany of serious crimes, including violation of international and bilateral agreements, conducting a global war of aggression, and crimes against humanity and peace.
*In 2010, Russia included "Mein Kampf" on a list of prohibited extremist materials. However, in Germany, the first critical edition of the book was published in 2016 upon the approval of German's central council of Jews. It became a bestseller the same year, with some 85,000 copies sold.