The Azov Regiment

DO YOU BELIEVE PUTIN? DO YOU BUY WHATEVER PUTIN SAYS?

Let’s talk about AZOV. Among others, they were the main defenders of Mariupol for 86 days out of which 82 were under full siege (from 24th of February – 20th of May 2022). After the Russian invasion suddenly began in February 2022 they stood up and defended their land from Russian aggression. It was Russia that crossed the border with the neighbouring country under false presences. Mariupol, a prosperous Ukrainian city before the invasion, suffered unbelievable destruction. It was Russia that killed 100,000 civilians in the city. It was Russia that destroyed practically every building in the city. And it was Russia that needed some excuse to tell their people that Russia was always right and fighting evil and therefore is justified in its actions, such as bombing high-rises and eventually the Azovstal steelworks. Because the Azov warriors had been defending Ukraine since 2014, when the Russian invasion began in the East of Ukraine (initially Russia denied its presence until the full-scale invasion in 2022), it was very important for Russia to discredit AZOV. For this reason Russia proclaimed AZOV to be fascists who were worthy of being eliminated, while Russia proclaimed Ukrainian territories to be theirs. Thus in the 21 century we have a situation when one country invades another, proclaiming its residents to be followers of Nazi ideology, and then proceeds to territorial annexation. Those who stand against it with weapons in their hand, are, of course, the worst Nazis of all.

But what is Nazism, this thing that Putin allegedly started a war over. According to the Wikipedia definition Nazism is a form of fascism with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-Slavism, racism, white supremacy, Nordicism, social Darwinism and the use of eugenics in its creed. Azov is a military regiment, not a political party. Ukraine is a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system and a president. Though every country has its internal problems, we never experienced fervent antisemitic events, such as the recent one in Dagestan, Russia, when a crowd attacked the international airport in Makhachkala seeking out Jews. Anti-communism is fundamental to our national politics now, because the people of Ukraine suffered greatly during Soviet communist rule. If you google Holodomor you will find out how many millions of Ukrainians were starved to death. We have documented mass executions of Ukrainians, and there is a special term, the Executed Renaissance, for a whole generation of Ukrainian poets, writers and artists who were executed between 1920s and 1930s. Common people whose lives were destroyed by the regime are without number. So we are in our right to grieve for them, to honour their memory and to call out the executioners, even if some of them are long dead. We do not want our streets named in their honour and their monuments adorning our parks.

So, who are the real fascists in this case? From open sources we can find this definition: “Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement”.

Just to clarify at this point, Azov is not a political party. It is a formation of the National Guard of Ukraine. And, as such they are supposed to love their country, however they do that ON THE TERRITORY of their country and it is still incredible that Ukrainians have to explain their right to love Ukraine in Ukraine. To investigate further, fascism has the following characteristics:

Dictatorial leader
Centralised autocracy
Militarism
Forcible suppression of opposition
Belief in a natural social hierarchy
Subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race
Strong regimentation of society and the economy

How many of those can be found in modern day Russia? You definitely don’t need an article to count that. So let’s return to Azov and the two main accusations: the chevrons and the torch processions. There is also a ridiculous one about tattoos, which Russians believe to be a sign of fascism as well. So much so that a Ukrainian warrior Vasil Pelesh had his arm chopped off in 2014 when he was captured by the Russians (open source information can be found), because he had a trident tattoo. The trident is an official emblem of Ukraine. In 2022 and onwards in filtration camps (places created for those refugees from Ukraine, who want to cross the border of Russian occupied territories) people, especially men, are forced to undress for their bodies to be inspected for tattoos.

So let’s return to the chevrons or shoulder sleeve insignia of Azov.

When the Azov soldiers were choosing their own symbols they were interested only in Ukrainian symbols that have nothing to do with medieval German symbols or Nazi symbols. The symbol used was extremely popular among Volyn (a region of Ukraine) noblemen and Cossack families. It is known as “Hook” and represents the intersection of two letters I and N that symbolize their main slogan - Idea of the Nation (another reminder, they are a military National Guard Brigade!). The letter N is in the old Ukrainian orthography and is written in the way they would write N in old Russian and old Cossack documents before the spelling reform under Peter the Great. The letter I is both old and current orthography.

The wolf’s hook was one of the sub runic symbols that initially was a pagan symbol that would save from a werewolf. Then its meaning was a wolf’s hook, or a trap for a wolf. It can be found nowadays on the coat of arms of many German towns e.g. Erwitte, Dassendorf, Wolfstein. In the 15th century the Wolf’s Hook was sometimes the symbol of peasant uprisings and as a result took on a special meaning of freedom and independence, and in military heraldry of power protection, protection of the owner of the symbol, mirror reflection of any attack. As you see, the symbol Azov uses has a rich history. Let’s take a brief look into the real Nazi symbols, in no means associated to Azov, just to compare.

The Swastika, that also had pre-Nazi Germany ancient meaning, is now solely associated with Nazi Germany and the horrors it inflicted. It is not that it had no previous meaning, it is that now, when people see a swastika on the street, they will not think about anything else, but the horrors of World War 2. The Russians, who like to accuse others of using Nazi symbols, do not refrain borrowing those for themselves. The Z symbol, for example, that has become the major symbol of invasion, was an emblem of the 4th Police Motor Division of the SS that participated in WW2 until 1945. This symbol was also used by the 133 Festungs Division of the Wehrmaht. In 1942 near the Sachsenhausen concentration camp a “Station Z” was built that was used for prisoner execution, and a gas chamber was built there in 1943. The V symbol also has used by the German Nazis. After the occupation of European cities the Nazi troops hung posters of V symbolizing victory. If you are interested in studying the subject further you will find several documentaries and photos.. Our main message here is not to study Nazism in Russia, but to help understand that people should stop looking for it in Ukraine, where it is not found contrary to what Putin says!

The last part is the torch processions. These, again, cannot be treated in the terms of the associations that Russia so much likes to attach to them, comparing Azov to the German Nazi party. We now know that Azov is not a political party. There were no incidents in independent Ukraine of gross abuse of Jews, of book burning or people of other ideologies being beaten with a political pretext, especially under Azov leadership. What Azov does have as an elite military unit are specific rituals. They celebrate Remembrance Day, lining up of their soldiers to honour all those who fell in the battles, reading the list of their blood brothers to mark their memory. Their practices are not harmful to anyone and therefore in a world appreciating freedom and diversity cannot be condemned for the sole reason of being different!

As a summary: for all Ukrainians the Azov defenders, including soldiers of the Azov Brigade, are real patriots who despite all odds stood against the Russian invasion to defend their Fatherland. But Putin needed to show his Russian audience the fascists that he was supposed to be fighting against. Small wonder that trials were organised in Russian towns with Azov defenders (NB not all of them were even in the military before the Russian invasion of 2022) which sentenced them from 20-30 years in prison for “being fascists”. On the 16th of May, 2022 the President of Ukraine ordered everyone in the Azovstal plant to leave. He called it evacuation and promised to exchange them within 3-4 months. The Russians called them prisoners of war although the defenders of Mariupol did not display a white flag and they didn’t raise their arms up when they left the plant. There were 2,500 Azov defenders. At the moment there 700 of them are still kept as prisoners of war in Russian death camps. They are regularly tortured and each lose from 20-50 kg of weight. In comparison Ukraine spends 10,000 Hryvnia a month to feed 1 Russian prisoner of war and all prisoners get medical help if necessary. There is no medical help for the Azov defenders. Furthermore, earlier this year the Russians conducted a terrorist attack on one of the barracks where Azov POWs were held. It is thought that 53 of them were killed, burned alive.

Our mission is not to let the world forget our heroes who suffer for the sole crime of protecting their country from invaders. Azov is not some mysterious fascist formation, it is officially part of our military, a formation of the National Guard of Ukraine that was based in Mariupol, a city that Russia destroyed in 2022. It was founded in 2014 and helped to save the city from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic the same year, remaining there as a garrison. If you have any doubts about how prosperous Mariupol had been, and what has become of it you can see lots of photos and videos or maybe even talk to some survivors from the city. To hide its war crimes, Russia will go to any lengths, even so far as to contribute all the destruction of the city to its defenders. The resistance of Azovstal steelworks was truly heroic. It ended when a significant number of the regiment’s fighters, including their commander Denis Prokopenko, surrendered to the Russian forces on orders from the Ukrainian high command. The Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that President Putin had guaranteed that fighters who surrendered would be treated “in accordance with international standards”. But Ukraine’s soldiers deployed in Mariupol were portrayed by Putin’s propaganda as “neo-Nazis” and now they are abused and tortured prisoners. FREE AZOV DEFENDERS! That is our message to the world.