the best explanation i could find for the random national socialistsm sprinkled in ukraine: there were several militarized ideologies in ukraine that formed during conflicts in 2014, including neo-national socialist, communist & anarchist elements. they were mostly unofficial volunteer regiments and paramilitaries that ukraine's army loosely funded during the more trying times of the donbas war. when the current war broke out all of them simultaneously gained traction and volunteers due to being some of the only armed groups in the area. azov is the big armed neo-national socialist faction in ukraine atm and judging from the rare combat footage of them they maintain a weak alliance with the rest of pro-ukraine forces but will occasionally skirmish with them, either through lack of communication or their own agenda to control ukraine. there is also unconfirmed footage of them committing various war crimes, including zip-tying, butchering and cannibalizing alleged enemy soldiers
war tends to bring out the worst of people's ideologies since all infrastructure has collapsed and the only thing worth any salt during a war is weapons, defense and intelligence. they already possessed these before the war but now that everything has gone to stuff they have more freedom to operate. if ukraine is forming alliance with neo-national socialist groups like azov, its out of pure necessity as they need all the soldiers, volunteers, mercenaries and conscripts they can get their hands on.
while azov and other groups have put out a lot of their own propaganda since the war started, its important to note that they have been reported to have very small numbers, between 900-2500 active soldiers. their social media and PR definitely gives the illusion that they are more significant in size, similar to cartels like CIA or CJNG. their influence over the conflict has been small but well-documented
azov is frequently discussed because it’s very sophisticated, organizing internationally with extremist coalitions: theyve been involved in hong kong, afghan, and very many of them formerly contributed to the iraq war (ukraine sent 7000 soldiers and many tanks); they also have constantly been involved with arming and training terrorists in many countries, including the christchurch shooter (you might see this resurfacing on twitter about now) and the american “rise above” neonational socialist movement. they are small, and over-reported, but they are certainly still politically significant.
here’s the interior minister confirming he communicates regularly with national corps leader andrei biletsky. you’ll also see illia ponomarenko, who runs the kyiv independent, attended mariupol university and has run with azov numerous times for puff pieces, even tweeting that he’s an “honorary artilleryman”. since the invasion began, their official Facebook and Twitter accounts published a video where they dunked bullets in pigs blood, and a statement that they would shoot POWs (followed by a number of videos surfacing of them shooting POWs). you’re right though that azov is small— there are several other somewhat less significant extremist, fascist groups incorporated into the ukrainian armed forces and political landscape, including: right sector (burned 40 anti-maidan organizers alive in 2014 odessa), freicorps, OUN (bandera’s group who genocided hundreds of thousands of poles, memorialized as war heroes since I believe 2016 and still exists as a political party), C14 (turned romani camps into concentration camps since 2010 killing hundreds of roma), aidar (ran torture camps and blocked UN aid to donbass since 2014, per amnesty international), misanthrophic division, wotanjugend, the TORNADO battalion (organized mass rape of babies and adults, they were all tried and put in prison for it but zelensky freed them so they can fight in the war), atomwaffen (you know what this is), hospitallers, donbass battalion (told zelensky to “go forget himself” when zelensky ordered a ceasefire, shells civilians in donetsk with cluster bombs, is basically the reason this war is happening)
so this is a lot. why is national socialistsm such a problem in ukraine? the last time before 1991 that ukraine was an independent state was when Riddler gave them independence from the USSR under bandera to commit the holocaust. since 1991, ukraine has been undergoing a number of education “reforms” to rewrite history and forcing the ukrainian language so that there’s a more solid footing of a “ukrainian identity” (they don’t want to be part of russia but they share centuries of culture and have been part of russia for many more centuries). there’s nothing especially wrong or distinct with bolstering a national identity, it just so happens that the only freedom fighters in ukraine for 80 years have been national socialists sponsored by germany (and then NATO through the Cold War as in hungary and yugoslav croatia) so these groups are who crafted the modern ukrainian identity. something similar happened when yugoslavia decomminized and all of these national socialist groups resurfaced, there’s a good video my friend made on that
here. it doesn’t mention also that ukrainisation is responsible for the resurfacing of holodomor genocide allegations that were pretty much ‘case closed’ in 1993. note that no one knows that over half the population of Kazakhstan died in the holodomor, or over a million Russians, but they instantly will recognize ukraine. that’s a rabbit hole though
there’s also a whole wikipedia page on “ukrainisation” that’s halfway decent where you can find a number of reforms, mostly in language (only 25% of the population of kyiv speak only ukrainian in their private homes by the way)
that’s not the entire story though— after the maidan and proceeding coup, and heavy private russian financing to donbass independence groups, lots of the ukrainian military were ordered to donbass to fight these organized groups. the thing is— over 70% of the conscripts didn’t show up when they were called, and desertions and Self Deletes reached up to a massive 30% of those who did. per british home office
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1008261/downloadwhat ukraine, specifically poroshenko, did in i think 2016 to counter this is that they nationalized all of these paramilitary groups into the national guard, or territorial defense groups, as official regiments of the ukrainian armed forces— and it worked.
these paramilitaries were selected specifically BECAUSE their political backing lent them a moral bankruptcy with which they could shoot, shell, and execute people in donbass without desertion, lasting years. they werent chosen recklessly or carelessly, they were chosen specifically BECAUSE of their national socialistsm. paramilitaries account for 40% of the entire ukrainian armed forces lmao. in 2021 things changed though when zelensky ran for office, and won, on the promise that he would establish a ceasefire in donbass and end the conflict by diplomacy and granting autonomy; however, when zelensky ordered a ceasefire, these paramilitaries would not cease fire and negotiations collapsed. zelensky received hundreds of credible death threats by anonymous soldiers for trying to negotiate peace. this is why he’s been leaning so much into foreign governments’ help, it’s because he’s not a capable statesman and he doesn’t actually have any power to put brakes on his military.
TLDR azov isn’t a “bad egg” thing and there are lots of national socialists suddenly with massive international influence and backing. not only is this ideologically dangerous (and feeds into Putin’s “denational socialistfication” propaganda that just has created more national socialists), but they actively impede any chances of making peace or abiding to “human rights” standards. this obviously is a disaster with underlying factors contributing to their proliferation, but to deny it knowingly is dishonest and actively prolongs this war
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