WHEN the men in black uniforms cocked their guns and pointed them at us, I realised that it was a bad idea to make a cold call on Ukrainian paramilitary forces at their secret hideout in the woods.

“How did you find us? Are you Russian spies?” yelled one, his face twisted with tension as he waved his 9mm-calibre pistol at my stomach.

Our terrifying encounter came after a drive down a meandering dirt road deep into a forest near the port city of Mariupol, on the Azov Sea. The men’s improvised headquarters lies on a small island surrounded by a pond. It is a hunting lodge that belongs to a local oligarch sympathetic to their cause.

This is the Azov battalion — known as