Under Olena Semenyaka, ‘international secretary’ of the National Corps, Azov has staged a number of gatherings and conferences and developed relationships and connections with far-right groups across Europe, including the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, NDP, in Germany and the neo-fascist CasaPound movement in Italy.

Azov’s links with foreign far-right extremists A report in February 2019 by the investigative website Bellingcat detailed how international far-right extremists are being actively sought out by Azov, among them Norwegian Joachim Furholm, who describes himself as a “national socialist revolutionary”. [This reporter has collaborated with Bellingcat but was not involved in the February 2019 report]. In 2018, Azov’s National Corps tasked Furholm with trying to bring in foreign recruits, even providing him with housing outside of Kyiv. Furholm told a filmmaker that his job could be described as “terrorist facilitator,” and said that after leaving Ukraine he would target his own government by “any means necessary.” Aside from its connections with German and Italian extremists, Azov is also close with former members of France’s Bastion Social, a group with a reputation for violence and anti-Semitic rhetoric that the French government formally banned in April 2019. The Nordic Resistance Movement, Poland’s Szturmowcy (Stormtroopers) and Estonia’s far-right EKRE party are also friendly with Azov. In the United States, Azov is close with members of the violent Rise Above Movement (RAM), as well as white nationalist Greg Johnson, who visited Kyiv in October 2018. Azov has also welcomed and encouraged openly neo-Nazi elements within its own ranks. They include Alexey Levkin, a Russian neo-Nazi, “political ideologist” in Azov’s National Militia and one of the leaders of a Kyiv-based neo-Nazi group called Wotanjugend. The Wotanjugend website contains a Russian translation of the online manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, who shot dead 51 people at a mosque in New Zealand in March 2019. A common neo-Nazi symbol Tarrant used throughout his manifesto and even wore on his backpack during the attack – a sonnenrad, or black sun – is the same as that used in the Azov logo.

In March this year, the Soufan Group, a New York-based organisation that conducts security analysis, described Azov as “a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist (RWE) network.”

Azov hosts an annual ‘Paneuropa’ conference for allies from western Europe as well as an annual ‘Intermarium’ conference aimed at central and eastern Europe, mainly those countries that were once behind the Iron Curtain or part of socialist Yugoslavia.

In September, Azov is taking the Intermarium conference on the road for the first time, to Seler’s Zagreb.

Intermarium, or ‘between the seas’, is a regional security concept first touted by Poland’s post-World War One leader Jozef Pilsudski in the early 1930s.

Kyiv-based researcher Alexandra Wishart said Azov had given the idea new life, promoting it as a “springboard” to build an east European confederation of right-wing nationalist “ethno-states” free from what Azov perceives as the ‘cultural Marxism’ of the EU and the ‘neo-Bolshevism’ of Russia.

Wishart, a graduate student at the University of Glasgow and National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, said Croatia was central to Azov’s plans.

“Croatia is a key player within the Balkans and central enough to help neutralize Russian or EU influence there,” said Wishart, who attended the October 2018 Intermarium conference in Kyiv as an observer.

Seler confirmed Zagreb would host the conference, bringing together delegates from Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, he said.

It will be a chance to cement developing ties between Azov and the Croatian Sovereigntists, an alliance of far-right parties which came a surprise third in Croatia in European Parliament elections in May with 8.5 per cent of the vote. The alliance has one MP in the Croatian parliament but is polling at almost six per cent with parliamentary elections due next year.

The alliance’s sole MEP is Ruza Tomasic, a former police officer who left socialist Yugoslavia for Canada aged 15 and recently made headlines in Croatia when photographs were published showing her in fascist uniform while living in Canada and apparently glorifying Croatian WWII fascist leader Ante Pavelic. Tomasic told a Croatian journalist that she was “not ashamed” of this, but that she “[did] not stand by some of those things today.”

In a January social media post, an account run by Semenyaka said that “the coalition of Croatian nationalist parties is taking shape side by side with the progress in the preparation for the next Intermarium conference by Croatian and Ukrainian enthusiasts.”

Seler said the guest of honour would be Andriy Biletsky, leader of Azov’s political wing, National Corps, and an MP in the Ukrainian parliament, which he entered in 2014 as an independent. Semenyaka did not confirm the visit.

Azov allies in Croatian ‘Sovereigntists’