An introduction to the new Ukraine.

By Matt Florence

Azov battalion was once a paramilitary but has now been made an official part of the Ukrainian national guard. The black hooked symbol on their flags is a “wolfs angle” which was a Nazi SS symbol used during World War 2.

For people keeping tabs on the current civil war in Ukraine, it is common to hear pro-Russian sources and supporters labelling the Ukrainian government as “Nazis” and “fascists”, often bringing up comparisons between the current war in Ukraine and the Soviet fight against Germany during World War 2. So how prevalent are far right nationalists in Ukraine? Let’s examine the details.

Members of the far right nationalist paramilitary Right Sector during a demonstration on the 21st of July 2015. The red and black flag with the trident is modeled on the flag of the OUN-B which was a far right nationalist and anti-soviet terrorist group funded by Nazi Germany to fight communism.

How did the war start?

In early 2014 there was a coup in Ukraine in which the then Russian allied Ukrainian government was overthrown by Ukrainian nationalists. During the coup the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council in charge of the Ukrainian armed forces was a man called Andriy Parubiy who was the founder of a now dissolved neo-Nazi party called the Social National Party of Ukraine. Working alongside Parubiy was Dmytro Yarosh who was leader (now former leader) of the far right nationalist paramilitary Right/Pravy Sector. After the coup a man called Oleksandr Sych became the Deputy Prime Minister. Sych belonged to a nationalist party called Svoboda which believes that Russia is controlled by a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia”. In 2014 the far right nationalist party Svoboda which was formed by members of a now dissolved Neo-Nazi party called the ‘Social-National Party of Ukraine’, had thirty-six deputies in the 450-member Ukrainian parliament.

Who are Azov Battalion?

Currently as this article is being written the Ukrainian city of Mariupol is under the occupation of an army called Azov Battalion, whose flag sports a symbol called the wolfsangle which was best known as being a symbol used by two Nazi German SS divisions during World War 2. Since 2014 the Azov Battalion has been absorbed into the Ukrainian military as an official wing of the Ukrainian army which gives it access to weaponry from the Ukrainian government including machine guns, grenades, sniper rifles, and other such up to date and professional military equipment., Within Mariupol the Azov battalion held a 5,000 strong torchlight march called ‘March Khorobrikh’ (March of the Brave) led by Ukrainian parliament member Andrey Beletsky, emulating the torchlight processions of fascist Germany. In august of 2015, affiliates of Azov established a summer camp which trained children how to operate Kalashnikov rifles. Despite their far right nationalist tendencies, their nostalgia for Hitler, their use of Nazi German SS symbols, and their hatred for Russians and Communists, Azov Battalion members insist that they are not Nazis and that those who claim they are Nazis are only trying to smear the reputation of the Azov Battalion.

(Above video: the Azov Battalion’s Neo-Nazi military camp for children.)

Journalist Tom Parfitt wrote an article in the British Newspaper the Telegraph, describing an interview with an Azov battalion member: Asked about his Nazi sympathies, he said: “After the First World War, Germany was a total mess and Hitler rebuilt it: he built houses and roads, put in telephone lines, and created jobs. I respect that.” Homosexuality is a mental illness and the scale of the Holocaust “is a big question”, he added.

So how did Ukraine reach a point where this became the norm?

In 2014 the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych was forcibly overthrown in a nationalist coup supported by the United States. Yanukovych fled Ukraine and different factions in Ukrainian politics have been fighting to the death to fill the power gap ever since. The coup ended with a man called Petro Poroshenko becoming the new president of Ukraine. Before becoming president after the coup, Poroshenko was Ukraine’s ex head of the council of Ukraine’s National Bank and a multi-millionaire with a wealth of $720 million (according to the Bloomberg business journal). Ever since Poroshenko came to power the United States and Barack Obama have openly declared their support for him.

A photograph of the Odessa Trade Union massacre in 2014. Ukrainian nationalists set fire to the building which resulted in dozens of Russians being burnt to death. Survivors who attempted to stand outside the window ledges to escape the flames where shot at by the Ukrainian nationalists

Another photograph of the Odessa Trade Union massacre. © Sputnik/ Alexander Polishchuk

Very shortly after the coup forwarded by far right nationalists, attacks on trade unionists and ethnic Russians became increasingly more violent up until the point where armed and organised paramilitary groups were conducting mass killings of ethnic Russians and trade unionists. One of the most infamous cases happened in the Ukrainian city of Odessa on the 2nd May 2014 when far right Ukrainian nationalists threw Molotov cocktails into the headquarters of the Odessa regional federation of trade unions, suffocating and burning dozens of people to death and forcing people to jump out the windows of the trade union building to their deaths while Ukrainian police watched.

In early 2014 the eastern region of Ukraine called Donbass which has a high ethnic Russian population, refused to accept Poroshenko as the new president. Many factions of the Ukrainian army and police in Donbass denounced Poroshenko and a two Donbass cities called Donetsk and Luhansk declared their independence. Donetsk and Luhansk with possible (although unconfirmed) support from Russia have been fighting against Poroshenko’s Ukrainian government ever since. Meanwhile in 2014 after the coup Russia annexed Crimea and turned it into an administrated region of the Russian Federation.

Azov Battalion is only one of approximately fifty volunteer organisations within the Ukrainian war. The border between Ukraine and Russian occupied Crimea is patrolled by a far right nationalist paramilitary called Right/Pravy sector whose flag design is based on the OUN-B which was a group funded by Nazi Germany to fight against the Soviet Union. Neo-Nazism in high up Ukrainian politics is not something of the past.

Who was Stephan Bandera and why is he important?