Growth Of Ukraine's Azov Units Follow Path Of Waffen-SS
The rise of Nazism in Germany was accompanied by the rise of its armed militants. These were used to fight opposing political parties and militia formations. They were ruthless.
The units were later known as the Waffen-SS:
After release from prison Hitler decided that he needed a paramilitary group to protect him personally. That group should be steadfastly faithful and loyal to him alone; not least to protect him from possible SA intrigues. Therefore Hitler established a personal bodyguard in his hometown München (Munich). Initially this group numbered only ten men with one officer. It was first called "Stoßtruppe Hitler" (Shock Troops Hitler). Again the title derived from divisional assaults groups from World War I. Later it was renamed "Schutz Staffel" (SS or Protection Squad).
...
By 1932 the SS had some 30,000 men, ...
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In March 1935 Hitler renounced the Treaty of Versailles and announced the expansion of the German Army and the formation of the SS Verfügungstruppen (SS VT or SS special purpose troops) as the core of a full military division. This unit was financed by the police budget to counter any Army fears.
After the start of the war the 'armed evil' grew further:
By 1939, four regiments (Standarten) had been organized.
...
During the following winter and spring, regiments that had fought in Poland were expanded into brigades and later divisions. ... These three divisions were to be the nucleus of the Waffen-SS in its subsequent rapid expansion.
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At the end of 1940, the Waffen-SS numbered slightly more than 150,000 men. By June 1944, it had grown to 594,000. Intended as an elite force, the Waffen-SS evolved due to the exigencies of war from the original SS concept of a military organization imbued with Nazi ideology and loyalty to Hitler into a polyglot force of decreasing combat effectiveness.
The Waffen-SS was not part of the regular army. It had its own financial resources. It recruited and trained its own officers through Nazi youth organizations. These were 'true believers' .
There are a lot of parallels between the rise of the Waffen SS and the Ukrainian Nazi formation known as Azov.
Azov started as a violent hooligan gang in Kharkov. It mixed nordic myth and Nazi ideology. It found rich oligarchs as sponsors and in exchange provided them with the necessary muscles to solve 'business conflicts'. It has its own youth organization and international network.
Already in 2014, after the U.S. instigated a coup against the elected government of Ukraine, the fascist background of the newly installed government was shining through. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, selected by the State Department's Victoria Nuland, designated the Russian speaking people in east Ukraine who opposed him as "subhumans" i.e Untermenschen in Nazi speak.
In December 2014 the BBC(!) warned of the growing Nazi menace in Ukraine:
the ultra-nationalists have proven to be effective and dedicated fighters in the brutal war in the east against Russian-backed separatists and Russian forces, whose numbers also include a large contingent from Russia's far right.As a result, they have achieved a level of acceptance, even though most Ukrainians are unfamiliar with their actual beliefs.
The volunteer Azov Battalion is a case in point.
Run by the extremist Patriot of Ukraine organisation, which considers Jews and other minorities "sub-human", external and calls for a white, Christian crusade against them, it sports three Nazi symbols, external on its insignia: a modified Wolf's Hook, a black sun (or "Hakensonne") and the title Black Corps, which was used by the Waffen SS.
Azov is just one of more than 50 volunteer groups fighting in the east, the vast majority of which are not extremist, yet it seems to enjoy special backing from some top officials:
- Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and his deputy Anton Gerashchenko actively supported the parliament candidacy of Andriy Biletsky, the Azov and Patriot of Ukraine commander
- Vadim Troyan, another top Azov official and Patriot of Ukraine member, was recently named police chief for the Kiev region
- Mr Korotkykh is also an Azov member
Ukraine's media have been noticeably silent on this subject.
...
[A]lthough Ukraine is emphatically not run by fascists, far-right extremists seem to be making inroads by other means, as in the country's police department.Ukraine's public is grossly under-informed about this. The question is, why doesn't anyone want to tell them?
A year after the 2014 coup the CIA secretly started to train Ukrainian paramilitary groups for an insurgency against an eventual Russian invasion:
The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.
The trainees included Azov units:
Despite sometimes open acknowledgement of its Nazism — its former commander once said the “historic mission” of Ukraine is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival” in “a crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen” — Azov was incorporated into the country’s National Guard in 2014, owing to its effectiveness in fighting Russian separatists. US arms have flowed to the militia, NATO and US military officials have been pictured meeting with them, and members of the militia have talked about their work with US trainers and the lack of background screening to weed out white supremacists.
Given all this, it would be more of a surprise that the neo-Nazis of Azov haven’t been trained in the CIA’s clandestine make-an-insurgency program. And we’re already seeing the early signs of blowback.
In 2022, three days after the launch of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, I warned that these units would come to haunt the west:
CIA support for Ukrainian Nazis has a long history.Op-Ed: The CIA has backed Ukrainian insurgents before. Let’s learn from those mistakes - LA Times
A new Nazi insurgency in eastern Europe is an exceptionally bad idea. Fascist groups from everywhere would join in. A few years from now it may well lead to Nazi terror in many European countries. Have we learned really nothing from the war on Syria and the ISIS campaign?
Meanwhile 'western' media who had previously condemned Nazi units in Ukraine started to whitewash them:
Recently the New York Times, like many other 'western' outlets, has changed its language when reporting about the fascist Ukrainian Asov Battalion.What was once "a Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary organization" which even the FBI said is notorious for its “association with neo-Nazi ideology” was first relabeled as merely "far right" before it became a normal "unit in the Ukrainian military".
While propagandizing Nazi units the media have failed to point out the dangers of their growth:
During the war Azov has grown through active recruiting from "the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary organization" into the Azov Regiment and, after losing in Mariupol, into a brigade size unit.
It has since, like the Waffen-SS previously, continued to grow and has now reached the size of a corps:
The very first corps formation within the National Guard is now a reality. On April 15, 2025, the Azov Brigade, along with several other National Guard units, officially announced the establishment of the new 1st “Azov” Corps of the Ukrainian National Guard, marking the creation of the Guard’s first operational corps.The formation of a corps is based on the 12th Special Purpose Brigade “Azov” has been anticipated for many months.
The 12th Brigade, now the 1st Azov Corps, is the main fascist unit in the National Guard. It had the resources and time to celebrate its new status with 3:48 minute propaganda video.
Another Azov unit, the 3rd Brigade is part of the regular Ukrainian military. It is also designated to expand into a corps:
According to Yuriy Butusov, the 3rd Assault Brigade will be restructured into the 3rd Army Corps. The new formation will be led by none other than Andriy Biletsky, the founder of the brigade and the Azov movement.
In NATO formations a corps has between 20,000 and 45,000 soldiers. While the newly formed ones in Ukraine are currently still smaller their designation as corps points to further growth.
Already the two Azov corps are the world’s largest armed neo-Nazi formation. They are growing further through their own recruiting structures and youth organizations as well as by absorbing other 'nationalist' units.
These forces will become a serious danger for Europe:
Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope - 9:45 UTC · Apr 16, 2025A heavily Nazified army right on the EU’s border that will turn against European countries for “stabbing them in the back” as soon as the war comes to an end. Ukraine is the real security threat to Europe, not Russia.
A first taste of the backlash from the western support for Nazis in Ukraine has created came with an assassination attempt against then presidential candidate Donald Trump:
Yesterday one avid U.S. supporter of the fascists in Ukraine tried to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump:
Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec - 1:39 UTC · Sep 16, 2024EXCLUSIVE: Attempted Trump assassin Ryan Routh appeared in a propaganda video for the AZOV BATTALLION in May 2022
Embedded videoRouth, himself being too old to fight, had tried to hire foreign mercenaries to fight on the fascist side in Ukraine. He obviously targeted Trump because he had promised to dictate an end to the war in Ukraine.
As I have warned since years back:
Many more such incidents, predominantly in Europe, are likely to follow.
Posted by b on April 16, 2025 at 11:26 UTC | Permalink
next page »Thanks b,
Your comprehensive debunking of the Colelctive Wastes smug liberal elites claim there are no Nazis in Ukraine and the RF Nazi killers are instead of ge Nazis they Kill!
The dystopian Orwellian mind bending continues!
The elites need to eat their words or have them stuffed down their throats. Because it is them and us the populations who have been force fed to believe that LIE.
Here’s Panchrnko’s take.
‘ Diana Panchenko 🇺🇦
@Panchenko_X
16h
Ukrainians are afraid of Zelensky.
You keep asking: why don’t people fight back against Zelensky?
Just today:
1. Lawyer Olga Panchenko arrested.
She defended Ukrainians from illegal mobilization.
2. Journalist Volodymyr Krekotkin arrested.
He gave a platform to opposition voices.
3. Journalist Angela Gurina sentenced to 5 years in prison.
She exposed illegal mobilization with a video.
Speak out against Zelensky’s regime in Ukraine? You could be thrown in a pit for months, tortured, or killed. An American citizen was killed in a Ukrainian prison.
And corporate media? They’re covering it up.
Apr 15, 2025 · 6:38 PM UTC ‘
PS - b, Can you please do a new thread on the Wasraeli’s Nazis please as the fascist unelected self appointed ‘Board of Deputies has published a self serving letter in their wholly controlled British press today. I feel a serious need to put the boot 🥾 in on the ziofascists.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Apr 16 2025 11:51 utc | 2
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Apr 16 2025 11:45 utc | 1
News to me. Startling so many western leaders have Nazis collaborators hiding under the bed. First the Canadian leaders then this.
Posted by: Auckland | Apr 16 2025 11:56 utc | 3
T. Fazi: 'Ukraine is the real security threat to Europe, not Russia.'
Agree.
I was reading Consortium News in 2014/5 as the dangers of Azov growth, and its risk to Europe, were being discussed.
Azov now has its 'offices' and promoters Europe wide. A real threat and post this SMO I also expect them to become leaders in arms/drugs/extortion throughout Europe. Thank you Uncle Sam for this gift that keeps on giving and for your backing of the heirs of Stepan Bandera.
An important post 'b'.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 16 2025 11:56 utc | 4
Azov will be toothless as a combat force amid increasing defeats of AFU. Once they turn their attention to someone more equal to them, they will attack Poles, and other Europeans and start a terror campaign with the excuse of leading them to defeat and betrayal by Europeans.
Posted by: unimperator | Apr 16 2025 11:57 utc | 5
Also Kaja Kallas father was Soviet royalty. They had all the luxury and comfort provided to the Nomenklatura the Soviet ruling class. One can see family pictures where they all sit together in their big apartment.
Some two years ago there was a scandal in Estonia after it was shown that her husband who owns several companies, was doing some juicy business with Russia while she, as prime minister of the country, banned all Estonian companies and people from trading with Russia. But the media was quickly silenced and the people shut up.
One can see how her grand parents, her parents and now herself, are collaborating with external actors to personally profit from power at the expense of her country.
Posted by: SittingOnTheFence | Apr 16 2025 11:57 utc | 6
There have been Western government officials warning for years about the rise and threat of far right/white supremacist hate groups and they reason they were able to do so was because they themselves were creating it as a force to weaken the Russian Federation.
Just like using Al-Qaeda to combat the Russians in Afghanistan led to a rise in jihadis. Even then they knew that using jihsdis would give rise to Islamic extremists.
What did Brzinski famously say? What is more important the collapse of the Soviet Union or some stirred up Moslems?
Que even more repressive government laws, spying, banning of political opponents etc. to combat said hate groups. Anything for the elite to suppress dissent.
Posted by: Down South | Apr 16 2025 12:08 utc | 7
A year after the 2014 coup the CIA secretly started to train Ukrainian paramilitary groups for an insurgency against an eventual Russian invasion:b
The original plan was provoke an invasion, Russians do a Blitzkrieg to Kiev and then bog the Russians down for years with an insurgency. Ukraine was never meant to defeat Russia just bleed them over a long period of time of men and material till they went bankrupt. Afghanistan 2.0
I think the Russians figured this out and hence the slow grind SMO. It has negated the above mentioned threat. That is also why they won’t take over the whole of the country just the Eastern parts with a pliant regime governing the rest.
Posted by: Down South | Apr 16 2025 12:16 utc | 8
Ver interesting interview with Marta Gavryshko on the Burning Archive. She is a Ukrainian historian in exile. It seems the SMO has contributed to a further nazification of the army and society in West and Cenral Ukraine. Also in Kiev you started to see SS Galicia Division commemoration marches in 2021 even before the SMO. It is not limited to Galicia anymore.
The army has become the only respected institution in the country and the extremist militias are fully integrated into it (20% or more of the army). They have an enormous clout through training programmes given by western special forces and the best weapon deliveries by the sponsors.
This is in no way World War 3 but a sequel to World War 2. Ordinary (West) Ukrainians honour the 1941-1945 nazi collaborators as pioneers of their struggle against the enemy in the east.
In my opinion even if the Russians can push them back behind the Dniepr the nazification problem will continue to fester and inevitably infect the EU neighbors. There is a fertile ground there among the slowly sinking middle and lower classes.
Posted by: Teraspol | Apr 16 2025 12:24 utc | 9
OT: Putin speaking German with guy who fled from Germany to Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcdOppvG_3U
Posted by: Apollyon | Apr 16 2025 12:26 utc | 10
Kallas' father was director of the not yet privatised Sber Bank in Soviet Republic Estonia in the eighties. So Kaja Kallas in her youth belonged to the NOMENKLATURA of the Soviet system.
Posted by: Teraspol | Apr 16 2025 12:30 utc | 11
thank you b for the great summary.
also worth pointing out, during an english interview when
Azov was incorporated into the country’s National Guard in 2014, owing to its effectiveness in fighting Russian separatists.,
zelenski said, and im paraphrasing because i cant find it, that "those are good people" when asked about said azovs and other incorporated units into the national guard.
Posted by: Justpassinby | Apr 16 2025 12:38 utc | 12
Thanks so much b.
This is deadly serious.
There is hardly any doubt that the Azov will be the worst threat against Europe (and probably beyond) when the SMO is finished.
It looks like there is no will to stop it from any power other than Russia.
Posted by: Avtonom | Apr 16 2025 12:48 utc | 13
And when "such incidents" follow, the European elite would have more than deserved them! "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas"
Posted by: Steve | Apr 16 2025 12:55 utc | 14
in many ways, one can say that the nato-instigated ukraine conflict is the catalyst for a revival of eu(ropean) nazism. their never ending hatred for anything russian, because the slavic "untermenschen" simply refuse to be beaten, is going to lead to another round of world war.
the people in eu(rope) themself should be very vary of what is happening. just look at our unelected eu autocrats, threatening nations in europe that want to go and visit moscow on may 9th.
the excuse that it would give russia some form of goodwill in the eyes of the public is nonsense. the real issue is that the eu(ropeans) dont like beeing reminded that the "untermenschen" kicked their european-wide fascism out of eastern europe.
ill say again what i said a while ago. if you still live in the eu, be vary. get yourself something to defend your loved ones against what is inevitable. better yet, leave the eu and let them send their own children, not yours, for another sensless war because their egos simply cant take it. deprive them of this resource. you wont see kallas or ursula on the front, so dont give them klaus, juan, giulio, milo and so on.
the worst thing one can do is be passive and tell yourself "this wont happen here!". it happened in the past, and it all looks like it is going to happen again.
Posted by: Justpassinby | Apr 16 2025 12:58 utc | 15
Many more such incidents, predominantly in Europe, are likely to follow.
Posted by b on April 16, 2025 at 11:26 UTC | Permalink
Yes. With a huge diaspora , even if only a small percentage of true believers , it’s a support network in most countries ranging from scores to thousands.
Throw in some leftover hardware and al-caida looks like child’s play
Of course they lack the political clout of a bin Laden family (and its independent wealth) so I’d probably bet on seeing them on the crime scene for money, which could make them more exposed.
Another factor that might reduce their appeal is that, unlike the mujhaedin, they lost.
That, and particularly in Europe, as per Israel support, any “extreme right” thing is heavily prosecuted , so once outside of Ukraine they might find their activities curtailed.
As a final thought, it was a Jewish oligarch that sponsored them, but sooner or later I’d expect the two sides to come to blows.
Posted by: Newbie | Apr 16 2025 12:58 utc | 16
WHY THE US AND IT'S WW2 ALLIES WOULD BACK THE WAR IN UKRAINE THAT IS RUN BY NAZI'S AFTER WW2 IS UNEXCUSABLE! All because they are beholden to the military industrial complex. Hopefully Trump will help end this soon.
Posted by: Fortuna | Apr 16 2025 13:01 utc | 17
Let's not forget the Nazis who came to Canada. One "Yaroslav Hunka, 98, waved and nodded to the gallery as he received two standing ovations from Parliament." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/yaroslav-hunka-canada-nazi-germany-faq-1.6981437
And then there is Chrystia Freeland, who held the positions of deputy prime minister, Finance Minister and Foreign Minister. She was recently going to stand as the Liberal Party's candidate for Prime Minister. "Chrystia Freeland’s granddad was indeed a Nazi collaborator – so much for Russian disinformation" https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation
Posted by: JohnH | Apr 16 2025 13:03 utc | 18
How do these clownish Nazis reconcile dying for Jews (Zelensky and Yermak) and Muslims (Unamov)? A surprisingly progressive group of Nazis.
Posted by: Argh | Apr 16 2025 13:12 utc | 19
How do these clownish Nazis reconcile dying for Jews (Zelensky and Yermak) and Muslims (Unamov)? A surprisingly progressive group of Nazis.Posted by: Argh | Apr 16 2025 13:12 utc | 19
nazis killed more slavic people then jewish ones, so maybe they dont care to "die" for anyone as long as they can continue to kill what they consider "untermenschen".
the eu threatening serbia if vucic goes to moscow on may 9th also falls neatly in their view.
Posted by: Justpassinby | Apr 16 2025 13:25 utc | 20
Posted by: Apollyon | Apr 16 2025 12:26 utc | 10
Thanks for the link to that videoconference.
What impresses me more about Putin is that a guy so smart, so successful, so powerful and so important, has this unassuming attitude. The exact opposite of our political leaders, all of them ambitious mediocrities that try so hard to appear important.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Apr 16 2025 13:34 utc | 22
Already the two Azov corps are the world’s largest armed neo-Nazi formation.
I don't normally highlight any errors in your wonderful blog B, but I take exception to the above statement. The British army has more men. Sorry, but I had to clear that up. Oh, and before I forget, the Israelis, the French, the Germans, the Poles and of course the US military all have more neo nazi formations.
Posted by: Ogre | Apr 16 2025 13:34 utc | 23
Those Azov guys, the same ones Russia sent on retreat to Turkey? And the issue is what? The Azovs that were allowed by Russia to escape from the Azov Plant? All those high ranking, well we don't know the ranks the Russians let them go. So what is the issue? The same Azov that run amok freely across 404 shooting retreating Ukies and commiting acts of Genocide against Russians?
Best gift to Russia, with Azovs still there Russians can kill Ukrainians till one of Putin's grandkids get selected for President. Gotta love the attrition war, slowly on the death drip, slowly dying, well as long as no Russians are hurt during the making of the SlogMow its full steam ahead, slow steam, but ahead none the less.....
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Apr 16 2025 13:41 utc | 24
And this Nazi c*nt is the favoured stooge of the FO/MOD/MI6 elites at the court of St Iames being made ready to be the next military dictator in the Great Game.
‘ 🇺🇦 Former Ukrainian commander in chief and ambassador to the UK Zaluzhny called Ukrainians to the war and "not to be afraid to die and to be ready to kill."
In November, Zaluzhny already advised Ukrainian soldiers in Britain "not to be afraid of death."
#LordBeboExclusive ‘
Posted by: DunGroanin | Apr 16 2025 13:42 utc | 25
Thanks B - all this undeniably true and not hidden from view.
And yet Europe supports Ukraine with its Nazi brigades unquestioningly.
Because Europe is congenitally Nazi.
Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Apr 16 2025 13:48 utc | 26
They were definitely involved in the The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, also known as the Salisbury Poisonings.
Azov played the role of the Russians in that whole drama. I bet the photos taken of so called Russians entering and leaving the airport were indeed Azov members.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 13:48 utc | 27
Mick Wallace give it big time - to the Neo-Nazi, Zio-loving EU parliament.
https://nitter.poast.org/sahouraxo/status/1908617147997405545#m
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 16 2025 13:51 utc | 28
- Zelensky doesn't want to end the war in the Ukraine and therefore simply needs every man who can fight for his (crumbling) army.
- These ukrainian ultra right wing groups can also "help out" / "join forces with" other, already existing domestic right wing groups in the EU.
- That's why it is/will be VERY important that these right wing groups are disarmed and "neutralized" as soon as possible. Either before or after this war in the Ukraine has ended. That's why - I assume - that Russia is talking about "De nazification of Ukraine". Even Nicolai Petro has talked about that more than once.
Posted by: WMG | Apr 16 2025 13:52 utc | 29
With respect, b --
It's both unfortunate and confusing to define and describe Azov in terms of- and by analogy to - Nazis.
The essay would have been more informative if it had stuck with how Azov emerged from within the Ukrainian socio-political context and how it is unique from, rather than rather comparable to the Nazi context.
The Nazi comparison seems to be the armchair analyst's Go To reference, perhaps because its pushed in the faces of the inquiring masses at every opportunity via multiple media, and has been since well before Hitler first drew a hooked cross in a white circle.
But if the analogy is insisted upon, then take it to its logical conclusion: Ask the question, Why did Victoria Nuland and those who set in motion the slaughter of Ukrainian and Russian young men (and women) pointedly employ "Nazis" to carry out their plot?
Does the comparison persist, that is, if it was an Anglo-zionist plan to use Azov/Nazis to destroy Ukraine-Russia, was it also an Anglo-zionist plan to use "Nazis" to destroy Germany?
Posted by: Errata | Apr 16 2025 13:53 utc | 30
You had those ex Russians on the Belgorod border. That used to cross the border and attack the Belgorod region from time to time.
What do they call themselves again ?
The freedom of Russia legion ??
They could easily have been involved in the Salisbury Poisonings.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 13:54 utc | 31
OT: Putin speaking German with guy who fled from Germany to Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcdOppvG_3U
Posted by: Apollyon | Apr 16 2025 12:26 utc | 10
So what has changed in Essen?
Posted by: Passerby | Apr 16 2025 13:54 utc | 32
Azov’s ideological influence on Ukrainian society—-also the influence of Svoboda and Right Sector, too—helped shape the country’s post-Euromaidan agenda. Public declarations of ultra-nationalist extremists in Ukraine served as magnet for likeminded individuals from the U.S. and EU to travel there and train. According to the Center at West Point in 2015, Ukraine was dubbed the first country “where overtly far-right white nationalist militias are publicly celebrated, openly organizing, and with well-placed friends in high governmental roles.” In the post-Euromaidan sphere, Ukraine was a Petri dish for these elements.
VVP did not make this up. In Ukraine, neo-Nazi affiliation was & is a deal.
Craig Lane, an American, joined the Georgian National Legion in 2016, which fought on the side of neo-Nazi militia against Russian ethnic separatists in Donbass. He was an adventurer who beat, tortured and killed civilians there. A video depicts him beating and drowning a girl after one of his fellow adventurers has injected her w/ adrenaline so that she will not lose consciousness while dying.
Sick as hell, this tactic illustrates the especially nasty way seemingly ordinary people get energized & exercised to engage in atrocities against civilians, apparently without reprisal, in a no-accountability environment like Ukraine.
Lane returned to fight in 2022 alongside the Right Sector against armies of Luhansk.
Proud men of action, adventurers like Lane, are nothing but tools for war-pigs in the collective West.
The radicalized murderer who killed worshipers in Christchurch, New Zealand wrote in his manifesto that he had trained w/ Azov. As if to return the notoriety and amplify it, a Ukrainian translated the shooter’s manifesto and published it as an inspirational guidebook, which prior to the SMO grew popular among paramilitary militias in Ukraine.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 16 2025 13:57 utc | 33
If they are Nazis, why are they taking Jewish money?
If they are Nazis, why are they fighting against Russian Nationalists who are in a deeper struggle against the liberal world order in the west? Certainly they should know that the bill will come due if they were to defeat the Ruskie and win their "freedom."
WW2 started because the west goaded Germany into it after Germany was merely undoing the wickedness of Versailles. The Nazis had a legitimate claim as "true believers." Of course, this is an enormous topic that can't be swept away easily by referring to them merely as deranged chauvinists.
Do the Ukes have a legitimate case against Russia?
Other than the centralization of the Soviets that led to many deaths and starvation, the Ukes were just a terribly corrupt country, very much unlike Germany as it was galvanizing from the effects of Versailles.
...
b does an admirable job of tracing the origins and I will read it again, but they just don't resemble the Nazis of Germany to me. More like Nazi-posers.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 34
Members of the Azov Battalion who had targeted civilians in Mariupol from 2014 through 2022 visited Congress as revered guests in December 2022. The next week they took their U.S. tour to Stanford University, where they participated in a Slavic Studies panel about culture in Ukraine. In order to mainstream them and astro-turf the Battalion’s normality, their Nazi-derived insignia, including the *wolfsangel* and the *sonnenrad*, were projected on a screen in the auditorium where they spoke.
By March 2023, Stanford University was condemning Nazi insignia scrawled on a wall in one of its dormitories.
Anything that shades in nuance or context or complexity in Project Ukraine confounds the simplistic paint-by-numbers children’s coloring book version of the war, a strict no-no.
The peculiar ecosystem of this war means one can’t utter a truth for fear of giving the adversary a ‘W’—-and this feature compounds itself as the war builds. It never gets easy to utter a truth about Project Ukraine.
As if to mesmerize further, when a Ukrainian combatant was photographed wearing the Totenkopf, a long-standing Nazi emblem, a spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League said it was impossible to “make an inference about the wearer or the Ukrainian army” based on the presence of the Totenkopf on the soldier’s uniform. The spokesman noted that “the image, while offensive, is also that of ‘Death In June,’ a British neo-folk band.”
So is it neo-Nazi or merely neo-folk-? When it comes to Project Ukraine, and the need to deal VVP a publicly humiliating loss, an image is only an image.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 35
They were definitely used to take out Nordstream. Plant the bomb in Turkey.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 36
@NemesisCalling | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 34
Nazism and Zionism are indistinguishable from each other. There is no surprise.
Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 16 2025 14:03 utc | 37
@Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 36
That was USS Kearsarge. Keep Russia out, US in, Germany down.
Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 16 2025 14:06 utc | 38
This how they get you into the Azov Brigade (32nd Assault Brigade) to send you to the front - to be turned into mince meat.
https://nitter.poast.org/Kanthan2030/status/1899277303378739555#m
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 16 2025 14:09 utc | 39
The only thing I can't figure out is why when Russia had Ukraine they didn't invest heavily into it.
It looks like a third world country when you watch Weeb union and Dima. Especially the rural areas they look very poor.
Maybe rather than just use Ukraine to extract real resources from it. If Russia had invested heavily into it none of this would have happened.
I hope they have learned from this when they take some parts of Ukraine back into Russia.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:10 utc | 40
It's both unfortunate and confusing to define and describe Azov in terms of- and by analogy to - Nazis.
Posted by: Errata | Apr 16 2025 13:53 utc | 30
---
Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with history knows that the Nazis are not organic but rather are the iron fist of Fascism in the velvet glove of Liberal Democracy. The Nazi movement has always been supported with funding from International Elites as a bulwark against the rising tide of Socialism.
Ukraine's Nazis are the spawned from the Demon Seed of Project Aerodynamic. Now twisted into designs of their own Ukraine's Nazis sustain their movement on the vilest prejudices of avarice.
The fundamental modes of thought that sustain Nazism (and other Fascist ideals) must be eradicated. There is no fence high enough to contain such egotism.
Posted by: too scents | Apr 16 2025 14:12 utc | 41
Re my (39) comment, Apologies the Azov Brigade - is now called the 3rd Assault Brigade not the 32nd- its an attempt to hide what they really are.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 16 2025 14:12 utc | 42
@Errata Apr 16 2025 13:53, who said:
The essay would have been more informative if it had stuck with how Azov emerged from within the Ukrainian socio-political context and how it is unique from, rather than rather comparable to the Nazi context.
Errata: please inform the Bar how it "emerged from the Ukrainian socio-political context" and how Azov is unique from the Nazis. You made an assertion that might be of great interest ... and then said nothing more about it in your post.
I do agree that using "Nazi" as blanket symbol for any militaristic, cult-like, hate-driven group is insufficiently definitive to understand them (e.g. an Azov-like group) well enough to predict future actions and mount an effective response.
The term "Nazi" is a thought-deadener. It's a term that, due to its historical and emotional baggage, obstructs further analysis, inspection, and definition.
If one is to defeat a force, it's important to know how that force comes to be, what it can do, and how it will do it.
What has continued to astonish me is how readily the EU societies have bought into and supported the obvious, clear, amazingly bad top-down-injected emotional manipulation. I thought the EU had a lot of independent thinkers, people that would _never_ submit to that sort of manipulation.
But they did. There are some good reasons for that, and Errata is asking the right questions. There are clearly latent forces extant that are being very adroitly exploited. What are those forces, and what's the mechanism of feeding, fanning, rewarding, inducing them?
To the Bar: feel free to pile on. B has set a good direction here, let's put some more logs (information) on the fire.
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Apr 16 2025 14:12 utc | 43
A leading scholar of radical movements in Ukraine, Volodymyr Ishchenko, analyzed over 3000 Maidan-style protests in Ukraine in late 2013 through January 2014 and found that both Svoboda and Right Sector, far from being marginal to the success of Euromaidan, were its primary actors. Before the onset of the large-scale violence, Svoboda was the most frequently mentioned social agent in the Ukrainian media.
Professor Nikolai Petro reports this extensively in his 2023 book “The Tragedy of Ukraine.”
C14, a neo-Nazi terrorist gang, was particularly key to the success of the violent street coup in 2014. A member of C14 was quoted as saying that Euromaidan would have been “nothing but a gay parade without us.”
A 2018 report by Reuters stated that the City of Kiev had hired C14 as a *municipal guard* to patrol the neighborhoods, armed w/ a state-authorized mandate to carry out on-the-spot pogroms: in effect, street-corner-justice.
By 2022 and 2023, when people ended up duct-taped to lamp posts in Odessa, which was the public punishment for *collaborators*, members of C14 were front & center, the enforcers.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 16 2025 14:22 utc | 44
@37@Norwegian
"Nazism and Zionism are indistinguishable from each other. There is no surprise."
Indeed, Magda Goebbels was a Zionist, before she became a Nazi, she even met her Ex at the Olympics 1936, she also had a Jewish stepdad, she was an out of wedlock "bastard".
This sweet Zionist also happened to be Ukrainian, it's...like ... a pattern...just can't putt my finger on it.
Posted by: me-need-more-brain | Apr 16 2025 14:28 utc | 45
The only thing I can't figure out is why when Russia had Ukraine they didn't invest heavily into it.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:10 utc | 40
or at least have a better idea of what was going on on the ground pre maidan. Have spies on every street corner or whatever.
Posted by: natrat | Apr 16 2025 14:28 utc | 46
The BBC always have programmes regarding the golden age of exports and show tin mines in Cornwall or coal mines across Wales and England and the slate mines of Scotland.
What fucking golden age ??
The workers lived in abject poverty it was the owners that became extremely rich and owned vast estates across the land and owned massive art collections.
It is very clear to me looking at the houses they live in, that rural Ukraine is straight out of the 1900's. Very poor and dressed like tramps.
Russia fucked up there and could have invested heavily and made everybody really better off and nobody would have wanted to leave. Rather than extract imports for itself and persue a stupid export your way to growth model.
Hopefully lessons will have been learned from the past and the Russians do it right this time and really look after the oblasts they are about to take back.
I noticed when they took Mariupal they immediately increased pension payments which is a good start. But a lot more needs to be done. Look after these people and they will never want to leave Russia again.
Same could have been said about Estonia, Latvia , Lithuania etc etc. If Russia had looked after the people there better they would NEVER had wanted to leave in the first place.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:29 utc | 47
West Virginia is, rumor has it, where the fascist training camp is.
Posted by: BenTrovata | Apr 16 2025 14:30 utc | 48
@Posted by: NemesisCalling | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 34
The differences between actual Judaism and Zionism are profound, with the Zionists most definitely collaborating with Nazi Germany in the transfer of their true believers to Palestine. Hertzl, the atheist (i.e. non-Jew) grandfather of Zionism considered that the vast majority of Jews who were integrated into European society, and would have been happy to remain so, were "rats". The Zionists worked to block Jewish emigration to anywhere other than Palestine, leading to around a million of them dying needlessly at the hands of the Nazis. They also collaborated at other times, as in Hungary, to facilitate the escape of their own Zionist cadres while keeping unrest in the Jewish population down to facilitate their transfer to the death camps.
Both Nazism and Zionism are fascist in nature, simply with different Others to be targeted and scapegoated. Many, many of the Zionist leaders are atheists - cosplaying at being Jews to drive their disgusting ideology. There is no such thing as a Jewish ethnicity, such a concept aligns perfectly with Nazi ideology of the Jews as a separate race.
There were real issues for Germany after the Treaty of Versailles, but they can in no way excuse the utter depravity of the Nazi ideology which had already been very well displayed before 1939. The West played along with Hitler because they wanted him to be the battering ram to destroy the Soviet Union, just as Ukraine was seen as the battering ram to destroy Russia.
The Zionists and the Ukrainian Fascist Nationalists also share the hatred of any group but their own, Zionism is a supremacist ideology which was a marginal one that developed in the Jewish ghettos of Europe. The Nazis served it greatly by murdering the millions and millions of anti-Zionist Jews and then providing the Zionists with the Holocaust get out of jail free card that they have played so many times.
Zionism directly contradicts the basic covenant that Jews made with their God, and therefore its followers cannot be Jews and in fact many of the leaders are avowed atheists. The same with Christian Zionists, as their beliefs directly contradict the teachings of Christ and many follow a "bible" that directly reinterprets and misstates both the words of Christ and the Christian God. Just in the same way that avowed Nazis should never be considered to be Christians.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 14:30 utc | 49
follow up to my comment at #4
this is the piece that I read in 2015 by the late Robert Parry - well worth reading again - includes ref to the infamous phone tap on Nuland, Pyatt and nominating 'Yats' for PM BEFORE Maidan!
Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s “regime change” in early 2014 without weighing the likely chaos and consequences, wrote Robert Parry on July 13, 2015.
ROBERT PARRY: The Mess That Nuland Made
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/
Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 16 2025 14:31 utc | 50
@40 @Sun of Alabama
Ukraine was the richest and most industrially advanced of the Sovjet Union Countries, right after declaring independence, they really managed to fuck that up to become the poorest and most corrupt country of Europe.
Posted by: me-need-more-brain | Apr 16 2025 14:31 utc | 51
The SS was never an ‘elite’ force, which is an over-used martial descriptor that self-evidently cannot describe any large formation. It attracted committed ideologues, who normally achieved their military objectives at great cost, due to this fanaticism (parallels here with the Samurai code and attendant Japanese mentality sabotaging Japanese strategic aims). Even when getting the pick of the equipment, later on, and more of it (eg. 5 tanks in a platoon, not 4) many regular Wehrmacht formations equalled or exceeded its record in combat.
By the end of the war it was however an exceptionally efficient machine for the killing of fanatics, especially regarding those children who had been ruined by exposure to the corrupting Nazi propaganda. In that sense it did the world a favour.
Posted by: Milites | Apr 16 2025 14:33 utc | 52
follow up to my comment at #4
this is the piece that I read in 2015 by the late Robert Parry - well worth reading again - includes ref to the infamous phone tap on Nuland, Pyatt and nominating 'Yats' for PM BEFORE Maidan!
Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s “regime change” in early 2014 without weighing the likely chaos and consequences, wrote Robert Parry on July 13, 2015.
ROBERT PARRY: The Mess That Nuland Made
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/
Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 16 2025 14:36 utc | 53
Excellent write up today. The neo Nazi aspect of the Ukrainian government has to be the most important and most obscured fact in the west.
I've said it before, but this to me is the strongest rallying cry to western workers against their Imperialist governments. Imperialist masters refer to Azov as "far right", at best, but constantly slander broad sections of their own exploited wage slaves as fascist, white supremacist, antisemitic, etc for opposing US support of Ukraine and/or Israel.
The western ruling classes, just like the Hebrew zealots of yore according to Josephus, are now stabbing people in the market place and then screaming bloody murder pretending to be victims, all on a global scale.
The western wage slave is no fascist. He is in his masses the solution to the fascism of US Imperialism and it's disgusting allies in the Ukraine and Israel. Tattoo it on your forehead!
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Apr 16 2025 14:37 utc | 54
@Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:10 utc | 40
Russia never "had" Ukraine. When the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union it was the workshop of the nation and had some of the highest standards of living in the Soviet Union. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the economies of both Russia and Ukraine collapsed and were delivered to an oligarch criminal class.
In Russia, from the turn of the century Putin judiciously used the increasing oil revenues to slowly rebuild Russia while also edging out the oligarchs from power. From the same period, Ukraine has been utterly contested with extensive interventions from the West which included the 2004-2005 Colour Revolution that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian president because he had a good relationship with Russia. That lead to an extremely anti-Russian government until 2010, when Yanukovych won, and then of course the 2014 fascist coup.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 14:38 utc | 55
B:
It found rich oligarchs as sponsors and in exchange provided them with the necessary muscles to solve 'business conflicts'.
Why not to name the main sponsor of the azovites? The jewish Kolomoisky, the man with 3 passports. Who sponsored also the ppp.
Isn't it wonderful? A jew building an army of racist nazi criminals...
Posted by: Naive | Apr 16 2025 14:40 utc | 56
Posted by: natrat | Apr 16 2025 14:28 utc | 46
Exactly ! Natrat.
I mean Russia has had very little to do with the economics of Ukraine for a long time now. But looking after the people who lived there when they did control it. Would have sorted out a lot of the mess they are now facing.
But this is what happens when you put exporters before the vast majority of the population and shrink deficits and expect exports to replace them. You always end up with a lower standard of living in many parts of the country. As the exporters become very wealthy.
Maybe carrying out import substitution due to the sanctions has been an eye opener and Russia has learned that focusing on domestic consumption is the way to go. Japan and now China are waking up to this fact.
Why of course the UK voted for Brexit.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:42 utc | 57
Ukraine was the richest and most industrially advanced of the Sovjet Union Countries, right after declaring independence, they really managed to fuck that up to become the poorest and most corrupt country of Europe.
Posted by: me-need-more-brain | Apr 16 2025 14:31 utc | 51
Typical ukrainian. Like Tchernobyl. Nothing new under the sun.
Posted by: Naive | Apr 16 2025 14:42 utc | 58
@Ahenobarbus | Apr 16 2025 14:37 utc | 54
The neo Nazi aspect of the Ukrainian government has to be the most important and most obscured fact in the west.Question: How is that possible when only a tangential interest in the Ukrainian situation after 2014 made it impossible to not know about the Nazis (Right Sector, Svoboda etc.) and the Nazi killings? Plenty pictures, videos, WWII Nazi symbolism...
Answer: Someone didn't want to know. Or more likely: They supported it.
Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 16 2025 14:47 utc | 59
Here's hoping that the de-nazification plan gets completed
Posted by: Chris N | Apr 16 2025 14:49 utc | 60
Once upon a time there were ukronazis in Ukraine...
Now the merdias made them disappear altogether. Withewashing at full speed.
When discussing with people who only read the merdias, they automatically reply: but there are nazis everywhere even in our country, in Russia, in the yankeeland, etc.
To which Putin replied, yes but in Russia they are not in power.
Posted by: Naive | Apr 16 2025 14:54 utc | 61
@Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:29 utc | 47
Stop spreading your ahistorical rubbish about Russia and Ukraine, you are using classic "concern troll" games to libel Russia with such blatant untruths. Ukraine was an extremely prosperous part of the Soviet Union, destroyed internally and with the help of the West from the early 1990s.
Ukraine is what Russia would have been if Putin had turned out to be a "sober Yeltsin". The real villains of Ukraine, were Leonid Kravchuk (head of Ukraine SSR and then president from 1990 to 1994) and Leonid Kuchma (president from 1994 to 2015, he was also PM under Kravchuk). They oversaw the decline of the nation as a kleptocratic oligarchy were allowed to take over and the West also feasted at the same trough. By 2015, relations with Russia had improved somewhat and a president was elected who had a balanced view of the West and Russia. That's when the Colour Revolution was used to put in place a virulently anti-Russian president (Victor Yuschenko). In 2010 once again, the Ukrainian people voted for a more balanced president and he served for four years until the fascist coup driven by the US.
Zelensky was elected on the basis of stating that he would forge a much better relationship with Russia, he was heavily supported within the Donbass. But he then reneged and became a fascist and US puppet.
In Mariupol, Russia is showing what was possible for Ukraine if they had dealt with the oligarchs and stopped the Western looting. Also, if they had established a partnership with Russia. Russia never "had" Ukraine, the West made sure that they never even had a positive relationship with Ukraine for any substantive period of time.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 14:58 utc | 62
Looking at the border towns in the Kursk region when Ukraine entered it doesn't look that promising either.
Those are Russian towns and villages and they looked poor. Some houses still have outside toilets ffs. Russia needs to start getting its act together and look after these places.
It's alright Moscow and ST Petersburg growing rich from exports. As the mega rich oligargic exporters spread their wealth in Russian cities.
These rural areas need more attention and Russia needs to step back from this stupid exporting model. Start increasing their budget deficits and invest in these places.
You don't and they become breeding grounds of the far right.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 15:01 utc | 63
The evil is not the army.
The evil is the ideology which comes from the culture.
The Chinese and Russians are not Nazis.
Nazism was defeated then put on life support in return for a space program.
When will Europeans learn?
The next global conflict could be the last one.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 16 2025 15:05 utc | 64
In Russia, from the turn of the century Putin judiciously used the increasing oil revenues to slowly rebuild Russia.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 14:38 utc | 55
That's complete nonsense for a start. It is the tax payer money myth as if tax revenues from oil fund the Russian Treasury.
Let me remind you the Russian Treasury issues roubles from thin air. It is a full monetary sovereign country and issues its own currency - The rouble.
Russian exports DO NOT provide the Russian Treasury with roubles. End of story.
They ISSUE roubles from thin air.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 15:08 utc | 65
@Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 15:01 utc, who said:
These rural areas need more attention and Russia needs to step back from this stupid exporting model. Start increasing their budget deficits and invest in these places.You don't and they become breeding grounds of the far right.
I agree with your basic premise: "lift living standards and you drain the (emotional) swamp that breeds extremism".
Karl Sanchez has occasionally re-printed or directed attention to Mr. Putin's efforts to invest in the rural areas. China is on that one, too; I've seen several pieces, from official sources, that set out those priorities.
The recent changes in the economics of manufacturing (what it takes to stand up a factory) and changes in labor utilization (don't need as much to achieve increasing levels of production due to automation) point to a likely re-thinking of the utility of concentrating the population in order to achieve production efficiencies.
I'm pretty sure that fact isn't lost on Russia; they have 11 time-zones to fill up, no? And China has a lot of rural land not-well-utilized. Urban density causes a lot of problems.
So, SoA, I think the Russian and Chinese policy-makers get what you're saying. And Putin's leadership circle has demonstrated astonishing ability to implement their policies, as has China's.
The people that most need to consider what you said, SoA, are U.S. Americans.
A good bit of our economic systems (materials, mfg'g, education, housing, food) are well past their sell-by date, and some critical thinking needs to applied on the subject of emergent trends in materials availability, cost of transport, cost of building a new manufacturing facility, labor as a (diminishing) component of production, increasing cost of living basics (land, housing ,etcx) in urban centers.
What's the next-best-move re: incremental investment in productive capacity and settlement (where people live) patterns?
Time for a re-think, maybe?
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Apr 16 2025 15:23 utc | 66
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 14:58 utc | 62
Concern troll ?
Looking at a world map Roger answer this very simple question .
Is it....
a) The cities
Or
b) Rural areas
Where the far right take hold ???
Look at the Netherlands, France, Germany and England and who is voting for the far right populists.
America is the same. It takes hold in rural areas first. Rural areas are voting for the far right in record numbers. The rural areas voted in Trump.
Is that concern trolling enough for you Roger. Or just a simple fact as neoliberalism and it's obsession with exports hollowed out rural areas.
And yes , you saw the pictures like EVERYBODY else in Kursk. Outside toilets in the year 2025 and those rural border towns looked poor. Did they look wealthy to you ?
That's what an exporting your way to growth model does Roger.
China suffers from the same problem. Cities light up the night sky , rural areas peasants everywhere you look.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 15:23 utc | 67
@Ahenobarbus | Apr 16 2025 14:37 utc | 54
The neo Nazi aspect of the Ukrainian government has to be the most important and most obscured fact in the west.
Question: How is that possible when only a tangential interest in the Ukrainian situation after 2014 made it impossible to not know about the Nazis (Right Sector, Svoboda etc.) and the Nazi killings? Plenty pictures, videos, WWII Nazi symbolism...
https://postimg.cc/QBF4psvy
Answer: Someone didn't want to know. Or more likely: They supported it.
Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 16 2025 14:47 utc | 59
Dumb question. Imperialism's MSM deliberately obscures the fascism of Ukraine while wildly exaggerating it in the western working class. Why? Why the fuck do you think, trigger.
Thank you, next...
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Apr 16 2025 15:26 utc | 68
Troll of Alabama is trying the scattershot approach to derailing the discussion into nonsense. Rational discussion of real Nazis clearly gets under the troll's skin. Not surprising.
Now that you know the troll's intention, take it into consideration with your responses to that troll.
Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 16 2025 15:26 utc | 69
Interesting link from Naked Capitalism yesterday.
From Marxists.org;
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/04/ukraine.html
Very interesting read, fills in a lot of gaps in todays story.
Trotsky says that even though independence was promised in the soviet constitution;
"The slightest attempt to raise the question of an independent Ukraine openly would mean immediate execution on the charge of treason."
Trotsky believed that this mistreatment by Stalin and the bolsheviks drove the Ukraine into the arms of Germany, and that they probably would have become a loyal member of the USSR eventually if the bolsheviks had allowed them the independence promised by the Soviet Constitution.
Instead of following Lenin's and Trotsky's advice to allow Ukrainian independence, Stalin insisted on maintaining control of the Ukraine with an iron-fist and this more or less instilled a hatred for Russia in Ukraine, and drove their politics to the right.
Posted by: Watt4Bob | Apr 16 2025 15:29 utc | 70
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 14:58 utc | 62
Bum of Alabama ain't worth your time. He like little Steve are imperialist bafflers. Long winded constructions to hide the propaganda they want to push is the MO. They are either paid to do it or most likely are brainwashed house slaves.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Apr 16 2025 15:31 utc | 71
The danger is the alignment of european political grouping and thinking, both at EU and national level, with extremist ideology. Via Ukraine and via "Israel" (and so also indirectly via US).
This will set a new format of direction/counterdirection which was no longer part of european comportment.
The Ukrainian units are not effective outside of their own borders, would normaly have become mafia in europe (and so widely rejected) by traditional society.
Unfortunately traditional society is now swamped by EU legislation, open borders, 'refugee distribution', wokeism, EU military/authority centralisation, as well as being unrepresented by the now infiltrated or outright corrupt national offerings of political representation.
Posted by: Ornot | Apr 16 2025 15:35 utc | 72
It's high time for considerable polling to be done, not only in Galicia, but in surrounding oblasts. Likely that the R.U. intel people are already doing that on a very quiet basis.
Why? You might ask. It is near inevitable that the Russians will triumph. It is highly probable that a central Ukrainian government, friendly to Russia and Belarus, would be encouraged by the winners and thus, established. Their desire will be to have a tame, quiet neighbor to their immediate west. Thereby, that polling will be done to concretize realization of where these UkroNazi types have a majority, or at least a significant plurality of support in exactly which oblasts.
Informed beforehand, the new government in Kiev would eschew those tainted oblasts, and with intense cooperation by the Belarussians and even the Poles; a totally disarmed Banderite population would become a pariah state, closely monitored by its neighbors and perhaps even a deportation zone for those sectors of NovoUkrainia who would suffer irredentists within their new boundaries.
Quarantine for the Azovs and their supporters would be the descriptive term for their new "Vaterland"...essentially a self-ruled prison for those who would not be welcome in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and even in those Western European states which prefer peace and quiet. Passports would not exist for that pariah state....except, perhaps for dire medical issues as well as those inhabitants who do not prefer the surrounding madness.
Posted by: aristodemos | Apr 16 2025 15:41 utc | 74
Someone posted above and mentioned Kolomoisky...
Here is an article that beat censorship and flew through the cracks of the Mockingbird Wall in 2014.
Wouldn't happen today.
It is from Newsweek of all places.
Newsweek as you know is a synonym for Mockingbird Press.
The current (since a 2018 scandal/shakeup) editor-in-chief is Nancy Cooper.
Even a moderate bio about her is curiously missing. Why? And has been missing for years.
Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing 'ISIS-Style' War Crimes
By Damien Sharkov On 9/10/14 at 12:36 PM EDT
[the author Damien Sharkov seems to be struggling for work these days]
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604
Kolomoisky is the oligarch that made Zelensky.
And he also bought the presidency for Zelensky.
Haaretz had an article about Kolomoisky in 2014 that is well worth the read.
Haaretz is "the paper of record" in Israel, so this article is a white-wash,
but even so the stench of Kolomoisky remains.
================
Otto Penn, formerly known as librul.
Posted by: Otto Penn | Apr 16 2025 15:43 utc | 75
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Apr 16 2025 13:58 utc | 34
If they are Nazis, why are they fighting against Russian Nationalists who are in a deeper struggle against the liberal world order in the west?
That is a powerful and interesting question. Fundamentally Ukrainian Nazi types are into the rush of being brutal and anti-materialistic. They are into the experience of power not to pursued some rational political goal but for the spiritual rush of being brave warriors fighting just to fight. People like this pursue the goal of jettisoning all possible moral codes other than comradeship with fellow believers. We in the West, who reject spirituality as a matter of course, often fail to understand movements like this. This also explains why Ukrainian troops in the last bit of Kursk they occupy, a monastery, killed a commander who was negotiating a surrender--they are willing to fight to the death and believe they will be "immortal" in some way doing so.
Posted by: Chris Cosmos | Apr 16 2025 15:45 utc | 76
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 15:01 utc | 63
If I were you I will take a look to rural us areas, and even to not so rural areas.
By the way, in bigger cities, like Moscow, their underground stations are monuments, can you say the same for New ayork underground?
Posted by: Mario | Apr 16 2025 15:48 utc | 77
@Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 15:08 utc | 65
You are a very obvious ideological propagandist, any facts and logic based discussion with you is pointless.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 15:51 utc | 78
"Sun of Alabama" another handle that just redirects straight to MOA website. Utterly fake.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 16 2025 15:52 utc | 79
The only thing I can't figure out is why when Russia had Ukraine they didn't invest heavily into it.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:10 utc | 40
_______
Russia hasn’t “had” the Ukraine since about 1917.
Posted by: malenkov | Apr 16 2025 15:56 utc | 80
I am always flabbergasted when Slavs claim 'white' supremacy as a birthright. Apparently they require whitewashing to be achieve a status no one would associate with the least productive people of Europe. The phenomena of people in the lowest strata of society portraying themselves as superior to other peoples also occurs in the US and by people with similar origins to the Slavs of Galicia. People with a long history of being downtrodden by feudalism, religious wars, capitalist exploitation are susceptible to the lies about their stolen status and wealth made by demagogues. Interesting enough, this phenomena is first recorded in nearby Greece, where the word tyrant was invented to describe demagogues who utilized the discontent of an early proletariat to attain power.
Posted by: Keme | Apr 16 2025 16:00 utc | 81
@Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:10 utc | 40
Ukraine voted to go independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union BECAUSE it was better off than Russia (more industrialized with better infrastructure). Furthermore, Russia also took up the all of debt of the former Soviet Union and was in no position to do any "investing".
Ukraine started at best position of all the former Soviet Republics AND free of any liabilities. Blaming Russia for not investing in Ukraine after they decided to go independent is asinine. The fault is not in their stars, but in themselves.
Posted by: Sid Victor Cattoni | Apr 16 2025 16:02 utc | 82
Sun of Alabama’s several criticisms in several posts of lack of development of Ukraine when, as Sun of Alabama put it, it was under the control of Russia [i.e., when it was part of USSR]:
Post WWII industrial growth in Ukraine was comparable to the Japanese post-war economic miracle from comparable levels of war destruction even though international capital did not invest in Ukraine as it did in Japan. So sayeth Wikipedia: “During the post-war years, Ukraine's industrial productivity doubled its pre-war level.[81] In 1945 industrial output totalled only 26 percent of the 1940 level. The Soviet Union introduced the Fourth Five-Year Plan in 1946. The Fourth Five-Year Plan would prove to be a remarkable success, and can be likened to the "wonders of West German and Japanese reconstruction", but without foreign capital; the Soviet reconstruction is historically an impressive achievement.”
Therefore, Sun, your theory that current Nazi culture in Ukraine stems from a lack of development and poverty during Soviet times is false.
Posted by: mjh | Apr 16 2025 16:02 utc | 83
Keme,
Illuminating racism, most illuminating . Are you also pro-genocide ?
Posted by: Exile | Apr 16 2025 16:04 utc | 84
@ Exile | Apr 16 2025 16:04 utc | 86
My reading of Keme’s comment is that he attempts to *explain* the roots of Ukrainian Russophobia, not that he attempts to *justify* or *approve of* it.
Posted by: malenkov | Apr 16 2025 16:10 utc | 85
Power struggle in Ukraine: Poroshenko charged with illicit coal trade, Zelensky can potentially lock him up for 15 years.
IMO as long as Zelensky is president, is a gift that keeps on giving for Russia.
China just hit US with export bans for 7 rare minerals, not obtainable anywhere else on the planet. Chinese suppliers also produce 70% of components used in most US guided missiles.
NATO secretary Rutte said earlier Russia outproduces entire NATO by 3:1. Considering US is 90% of NATO output, that means Russia may outperform the entire EU in weapons production by around 30:1. With no war-economy. End result is sh#t ton of more Ukrainians getting killed and the war ending to physical lack of resistance.
How's that 'gas station with nukes' narrative doing?
Posted by: unimperator | Apr 16 2025 16:14 utc | 86
63 - Are the villages on the Ukrainian side of the border resplendent compared to the Russian backwardness? If not, why not?
Posted by: Waldorf | Apr 16 2025 16:16 utc | 87
members of C14 were front & center, the enforcers.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 16 2025 14:22 utc | 44
And some CIA member who probably found it funny decided that C14 would be a fun way to sign the joke.
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Why not to name the main sponsor of the azovites? The jewish Kolomoisky, the man with 3 passports. Who sponsored also the ppp.
Isn't it wonderful? A jew building an army of racist nazi criminals...
Posted by: Naive | Apr 16 2025 14:40 utc | 56
Not the first time, nor the last. There is a thing between those of judea and those of samaria and ...
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I mean Russia has had very little to do with the economics of Ukraine for a long time now. But looking after the people who lived there when they did control it. Would have sorted out a lot of the mess they are now facing.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Apr 16 2025 14:42 utc | 57
RF did not control and gave much, but much was stollen.
Better was reserved for when things would get a bit better if ukraine decided to better allign with RF.
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Quarantine for the Azovs and their supporters would be the descriptive term for their new "Vaterland"...essentially a self-ruled prison for those who would not be welcome in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and even in those Western European states which prefer peace and quiet. Passports would not exist for that pariah state....except, perhaps for dire medical issues as well as those inhabitants who do not prefer the surrounding madness.
Posted by: aristodemos | Apr 16 2025 15:41 utc | 76
Maybe outsource IDF to manage it? Experience in gaza would be considered a plus...
Posted by: Newbie | Apr 16 2025 16:18 utc | 88
…. NATO secretary Rutte said earlier Russia outproduces entire NATO by 3:1. Considering US is 90% of NATO output, that means Russia may outperform the entire EU in weapons production by around 30:1.……..
$100 billion Russian Military Budget
$1,400 billion NATO members military budget
Hmmmm
Posted by: Exile | Apr 16 2025 16:18 utc | 89
The French Republic (FER) is already implementing an alternative satellite communications project for Ukraine, where approximately 1,000 Eutelsat terminals are currently in use.
In the coming weeks, this number may increase by an additional 5,000-10,000.
In total, there are plans to deliver 40,000 communication terminals to Ukraine.
Due to broken relations with the Outlaw US of A and hostile actions taken by Mr. Elon Reeve Musk (ERM), DJT, and potato face Mr. James David Vance (JDV) against VOZ; the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) is funding an alternative to Starlink for Ukraine.
Parts of the technology however relies on supplies from South Korea and the Outlaw US of A.
Ironically, JDV recorded on tape once called JDT Hitler.
Interesting times for the coalition of the willing.
Posted by: pepe | Apr 16 2025 16:19 utc | 90
Trotsky believed that this mistreatment by Stalin and the bolsheviks drove the Ukraine into the arms of Germany, and that they probably would have become a loyal member of the USSR eventually if the bolsheviks had allowed them the independence promised by the Soviet Constitution.Posted by: Watt4Bob | Apr 16 2025 15:29 utc | 71
Another reason to dismiss Trotsky as the prime annoying nagger of bolshevism.
As if Lenin would have let Nationalists take over Ukraine...
Anticommunism is a disease.
Posted by: Roland | Apr 16 2025 16:21 utc | 91
"....the ultra-nationalists->[Nazis] have proven to be effective and dedicated fighters in the brutal war in the east against Russian-backed separatists->[speaking-civilians]" - BBC December 2014
That's what the modern-day-Waffen-SS do best, terrorize civilians, none of this combat stuff unless...it's to mop-up survivors after shelling civilians areas for weeks/months. Ex-ukrainia's modern-day-Waffen-SS, like it's forebearer is a terrorist organization and we know how Langley loves to engage in state-sponsored-terrorism.
Commenter Down South 8 says:
"The original plan was [to] bog the Russians down for years with an insurgency...[to] bleed them over a long period of time till they went bankrupt...I think the Russians figured this out and hence the slow grind SMO. It has negated the above mentioned threat"
And I assume Down South [and others] think that the modern-day-Galician-Waffen-SS are so incapable that they could not react to a wartime tactic that is now nearly three years in play?
Maybe the "slow-grind"/"more-cow-bell" folks are right to underestimate their enemy's intelligence but, I was taught to never underestimate an enemy. That is why when I read about ethnic Hungarians and Slovaks, who live in western ex-ukrainia, being dragged from the streets, issued uniforms and sent directly to the Russian front to face summary execution by Russian artillery fire...I knew. I knew then the SS Troops, always to be found hiding in the rear, had figured out how to counter "Russia's plan". And that...was over two years ago.
The cruelty I mention above surely happens to Russians ethnic or, inculcated as well and it is very profitable piece of thuggery for the modern-day-Waffen-SS to perform. Suddenly, there is property/women/children without protection to be stolen/sold to the highest bidder. Europe is crawling with prostitutes from ex-ukrainia, many underage, sold into brothels by the modern-day-Waffen-SS.
More cow-bell?
The "slow-grind" folks clearly "don't fear the reaper" visiting hell upon the unfortunate minorities who were forced to live in ex-ukrainia back when it was illegally contrived in 1991 but, I do, enough with the cow-bell. already.
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 16 2025 16:27 utc | 92
Another interesting aspect with the new Azov "Corps" is, that by reorganizing their brigades into corps they can more easily obfuscate their losses.
If several Brigades are at half strength merging them would be a big admission of how high the losses are within their ranks.
Instead they shuffle multiple units into big new organizations where it's difficult to discern what is actually going on within them.
5 Brigades at full strength (5 * 5000) would barely make a Corps of more likely 50000 men than 25000. I doubt these new Corps will even have those 25000 to begin with. Except for the 1st Azov Corps. These guys mostly fight against Ukrainians nowadays instead of Russians.
Posted by: Roland | Apr 16 2025 16:30 utc | 93
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 16 2025 16:27 utc | 94
before try to save the world, first try to save your ass
Posted by: Macpott | Apr 16 2025 16:31 utc | 94
Posted by: Exile | Apr 16 2025 16:18 utc | 91
As an educated guess I think that a great part of the NATO budget goes in the pockets of stakeholders and not in the real product.
Do you really think that f35 is worth it's cost?
Posted by: Mario | Apr 16 2025 16:33 utc | 95
Why not to name the main sponsor of the azovites? The jewish Kolomoisky
@Posted by: Newbie | Apr 16 2025 16:18 utc | 90
Kolomoisky, prior to 2014, held $assest$ in the Donbas.
Thus he could loose a fortune if the Donbas broke away.
Thus, the interests of the aZos and Kolomoisky intersected (for a time?).
"One filthy hand washes the other filthy hand"
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Did a search and Kolomoisky is in the $news$ even now.
Kolomoisky and Boholiubov cash in as ferroalloy exports skyrocket twelvefold
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/kolomoisky-and-boholiubov-cash-in-as-ferroalloy-exports-skyrocket-twelvefold/ar-AA1CwdTc
The so-called Privat Group [Kolomoisky, etal] has historically managed the operations of several ferroalloy businesses, including the Stakhanov Ferroalloy Plant (located in Russian-occupied territory), Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant, Zaporizhzhya Ferroalloy Plant, as well as the Pokrovsky and Marganets mining and processing plants.
Posted by: Otto Penn | Apr 16 2025 16:38 utc | 96
Posted by: Roland | Apr 16 2025 16:30 utc | 95
Yes, as unit TO&Es are less fulfilled, they are merged into larger units. Like brigades to 'corps'. Ta da, suddenly you seemingly have a stronger unit in absolute numbers, but T&OE remains unfulfilled.
Posted by: unimperator | Apr 16 2025 16:42 utc | 97
Israelis are killing babies on film and gloating about it, with your tax dollars and material support, while you all do nothing about it.
Why should anyone care what any of you have to say ?
Posted by: ryanggg | Apr 16 2025 16:43 utc | 98
Posted by: unimperator | Apr 16 2025 16:14 utc | 88
China just hit US with export bans for 7 rare minerals, not obtainable anywhere else on the planet. Chinese suppliers also produce 70% of components used in most US guided missiles.
<=how much of that Chinese resistance is due to USA business interest producing and doing business in China..Do these foreigners operating in China have a voice in Chinese foreign policy?
IOWs is the theft Trump is trying to prevent attributable to USA businesses
and investors doing business in far away places like China, Taiwan .
Posted by: snake | Apr 16 2025 16:46 utc | 99
Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Stefanchuk said before the vote that the deputies who will vote against extending martial law and mobilization are Russian agents.
LMAO
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1912459724559183947
Posted by: unimperator | Apr 16 2025 16:47 utc | 100
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I'd be curious to know if Azov Battalion and other Nazi groups in Ukraine are also receiving support from European intel and other agencies, and possibly support from the EU itself.
One reason that EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas resents the Russians so much is that her mother Kristi Karjus and maternal grandparents were exiled to Siberia for several years after WW2 when Kristi was an infant. This was likely because the father (Kaja K's maternal grandfather) had been a member of the Omakaitse, a paramilitary force that collaborated with the Nazis, and in that capacity not only killed Jews and people suspected of working with the Soviets but also refugees fleeing Leningrad (under Nazi siege) and trying to enter Estonia.
Who would put it past Kallous Kaja not to secretly aid Ukrainian Nazi groups in some way?
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Apr 16 2025 11:45 utc | 1