As there was no evidence for this “NATO foreign legion,” Russian propagandists came up with an incident claiming a soldier who told a camera-crew “out of my face” in idiomatic English was from NATO. The clip was broadcast on Russia’s TV1 and other channels:

So in response, there has been a barrage of Kremlin counter-propaganda claiming that “NATO is in Ukraine”. President Vladimir Putin gave a paranoid speech yesterday, in which for the first time, he characterized Ukrainian forces as a “NATO foreign legion.”

The responsibility for the firing of numerous Grad rockets on Mariupol appeared unmistakeable, as the separatists had clearly-established positions to the east of the city and many of the Grad rockets lodged in roads showed their trajectory was from the east .

Yesterday, the international community converged on Moscow with condemnation of the Russian-backed militants’ shelling of Mariupol in which 30 people were killed and 90 wounded — by a Grad crew commanded by a Russian officer, as the spotter arrested by Ukrainian authorities reported .

In recent days, Russian state media and pro-Kremlin news outlets have been going full tilt with a claim that “NATO is fighting in Mariupol.”

But Russian propagandists have a more damning clip, which they take from the Azov Battalion video (which we reported January 24 ) in which a soldier is heard speaking at length to the cameraman about a Grad missile crater in a school yard:

Maybe the soldier simply thought that was a great expression he had heard on TV.

This is a problem for “LifeNews,” as well, which seems to have wanted to give itself more international recognition by calling itself an English name — but which then can be perceived by locals as a foreign camera crew.

Possibly the soldier spoke in English, even though the TV journalist spoke in Russian, because he saw the English letters “MTV” which isn’t music television but stands for “Mariupol TV” .

At 0:41, the soldier can be seen putting his hand up in front of the camera and saying “out of my face”:

At 0:11, we can see a soldier wearing his cap backwards, in the American style:

This soldier’s accent isn’t American but it might be British or Australian although he doesn’t sound like a native speaker, as he speaks in very short sentences, without proper grammar, drops articles, and has an unaspirated “k” in the word “school.” Here’s a transcript of the dialogue:

Azov soldier (cameraman): Is detected?

English-speaking soldier: It’s it’s right in.

Azov soldier: Uh-huh

English-speaking soldier: So. Maybe explode, maybe not…

Azov solider: Uh-huh

English-speaking soldier: So blow up in situ….Go to wall here.

Azov soldier: Uh-huh

English-speaking soldier: It’s a kindergarten, school?

Azov soldier: Yes, yes.

So it’s not confirmed that the person speaking English is in fact a foreigner — “blow up” and “school” are two words not pronounced like a native speaker.

It seems as if both videos are covering the same man with a khaki-colored cap and a green backpack. At 0:43 in the first video:

At 0:11 in the second video:

Why would both the cameraman and the other soldier speak in English at the end of this video footage of a devastated Mariupol?

One possibility is that the Azov cameraman, throughout the video, kept creating ready-made stand-alone clips that might be used in a television broadcast. Multiple times throughout the video, he stops people in the scene, asks them to introduce themselves, and asks them to repeat several times the name of the location and the city where they were, i.e. “School No. 5” and “city of Mariupol” — even though these facts were already obvious to the cameraman.

So perhaps the cameraman was hoping to create a ready-made episode that he could give to foreign news that would prove in particular a particularly dangerous situation — unexploded rockets in a school yard.

To be sure, there might actually be a foreign volunteer in Azov. Azov, an ultranationalist battalion known for its symbols similar to Nazi insignia, has received enormous scrutiny from some foreign and Russian media, because it seems to embody the worst case of much-feared Ukrainian nationalism.

Azov is said to have a Swedish white supremacist named Mikael Skillt in its ranks, and other European recruits seem to have been attracted to the battalion, according to Wikipedia.

The reason the fighter in the video may not sound like a native English speaker is that he could be Swedish or French or some other nationality, and English is a lingua franca with the Ukrainian soldier.

So perhaps this one man is a foreigner fighting for the Azov Battalion, but it hasn’t been proven.

Azov hasn’t commented on the allegations of having foreign fighters among them, and there hasn’t yet been any credible media investigating the story.

UPDATE:

The mystery of the foreign fighter in Azov Battalion has been solved, thanks to a reader: