OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: Part 5 of 6 Azov: The Russian Mirror

      

Intro

       The main observation after the invasion of Ukraine is the West’s fascination with Azov, unquestionably the most talked about piece of the Ukrainian conflict. For some Westerners, Azov became a face of defiance against Russian aggression but if you are a follower of Russia; Azov is the ultimate boogeyman, hateful "Nazi-Banderist-Death Squads" that are the face of an evil nation. Regardless of what side you are on, there is no denying that Azov is the face of Russian Anti-Ukrainian propaganda; manufactured proof for State media that all Ukrainians are militant white supremacists that deserve a fate worse than death. There's only one problem..... Azov was never actually an organic, ethnic Ukrainian, or even Banderist organization. Azov, for all intents and purposes, is in part: Russian....

       As puzzling as that may seem, the fact remains, almost half of Azov's original volunteers were actually Russian-born citizens, or ethnically and culturally Russian, most of whom did not even speak Ukrainian. The other interesting distinction is that Azov was also vehemently anti-U.S.(West) and anti-NATO. Quite different from what Russia called "Banderism" or who they considered "traditional" West Ukrainian nationalists whose ideology was rooted around a Westward leaning ethos and European partnerships, in effect, distancing from Russia at all costs. Though Russian influence was already successfully dividing the Ukrainian nationalist movements prior to 2014.  

       In Russia, for the better part of 2 decades, the Kremlin and FSB worked closely with the far-right, letting them run unchecked, even protected, right up until the 2008 Presidential election. The FSB would ramp up crime, using Neo-Nazi violence as a tool to silence political opposition while creating fear and panic within the voting public, in turn, allowing the justification of huge budget increases for the security services, (mainly FSB) as well as the passing of a series of draconian arrest laws and the expanding of Putin's internal security forces, which Putin explained are essential to the security of Russia's citizens. Starting in 2006 and cultivating in 2014 in the introduction of what is now called "The Iron Curtain Law". In  Feb 2016, members of parliament, without any meaningful debate or scrutiny, signed into law, a set of legislative amendments that severely undermine freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and the right to privacy – all allegedly in the name of protecting the public from terrorism and extremists. The draft amendments – called the “Yarovaya Law,” included numerous deeply disturbing provisions. Including giving FSB unlimited power of surveillance, including all data from digital communications.

       Russian Nationalism, since the 80s was always geared around anti-government rhetoric. Since some Russian Neo-Nazis considered themselves isolationist anti-imperialists and were in direct opposition to the Putinist regime, some of them, even chose to fight for Ukraine. Many considered the Putinist regime the enemy of the people and set the goal of liberating Russia from the corrupt regime, which they just did not see as legitimate.

      The core of the original Azov Battalion came out of Maidan, it included a mix of everyday Ukrainians, various Ukrainian nationalists, Russian ultra-nationalists, Georgians, Belarusians. Eventually even accepting volunteers from Europe. (Though Azov Regiment banned foreigners). The media however already manufactured this false narrative of a "Banderist" unit before Azov was even born. 

       Another interesting fact is that Azov was vehemently anti-EU, anti-NATO and anti-US, in fact many members openly admitted that if the choice was a war between just Russia or the US, they would choose Russia, if it wasnt for Putin and the historical overreach of the Kremlin against Ukrainians.

Botsman with Azov in 2014

         Ukraine's immediate need for military experience was so imperative that the early Azov Battalion was forced to let in some of Russia's most notorious neo-Nazis, not because of their ideology, but because the majority of Russian Neo Nazis were  first and foremost militarily trained,, such as Azov Battalion's Russian co-founder Sergey "Botsman" Korotkikh (outed as FSB in 2021)who provided recon and special forces training. Others came out later, including chaos agents Alexey Levkin, and Mikhael Shalankevich, who we would later discover were actually actively cooperating with Russian Intelligence prior to them relocating to Ukraine. In 2018 after being handed a 6 years sentence for aggravated assault and robbery, Shalankevich would walk out of court a free man the same day, with FSB allowing him to relocate to Ukraine not even 2 years later.  FSB informant Roman Zheleznev along with Kremlin assets Aleksei Kozhemyakin, and Aleksandr Parinov, all found their way into the battalion’s so-called Russian Corps. While a Russian reporter with similar views, Aleksei Baranovsky (who had moved to Ukraine), was somehow allowed to observe Azov’s daily routine. It is notable that Parinov and Baranovskii had previously been linked to one of Putin’s Russia most notorious neo-Nazi groups, directly controlled by the Kremlin and Vladislav Surkov; the so-called Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists, known under its Russian abbreviation: BORN. Who, amongst other things, carried out targeted killings of Russian anti-fascists, journalists, and Putin's political opposition. More interesting however is that the legal wing of BORN, Russkii Obraz (The Russian Image) had at one time been under the indirect protection and direction of the FSB and the Kremlin. So very odd for the Russian media to call them "Ukrainian Banderists; committing genocide against Russian speakers" when in reality, they were actually majority ethnic Russian speakers themselves. In fact Bandera is not even mentioned in their ideology, with Azovs former press secretary calling him a "Socialist" and is respected "as a person" but not as ahero or ideologue.

        The fact they were Russian speakers made it much too convenient for Russian media to amplify Azov's message. Strangely, some pro-Russian journalists from Ukraine would surprisingly promote Azov as a positive force. Such as exiled Ukrainian anti-Maidan journalist Anatoly Shariy, (who worked with Igor Lopatonok, who wrote "Ukraine On Fire" with Yanukovych's Kremlin attorney and FSB siloviki Anatoly Kucherena). Shariy was well known for his anti-nationalist rhetoric, but surprisingly shared his support of Azov and criticized the Azov movement’s opponents while providing a platform for Azov representatives to respond to negative assessments of the movement’s activities. From 2014-2018 Shariy would act as an apologist for Azov's actions, while interviewing Russian Nationalists, who for years preached Ukraine's destruction but somehow changed their tune after appearing in Ukraine, openly recruiting more Russian nationalists to join Azov's cause in Ukraine. Shariy would do an about-face in 2018, proceeding to criticize Azov, aligned with his normal anti-Ukraine rhetoric. 

        In Jan 2016, Azov Movement would also find themselves openly clashing with Anti Fascist and anarchist activists protesting the Kremlin during a memorial for the victims of Putin. Members of Azov's "Civil Corp" began making absurd claims that the protestors were supporters of Donbas Separatists and pro-Russian. A clear attempt to accuse their enemy of their own sins. 

        Fast forward to 2022 and Azov is so hated in Russia that their popularity even dwarfs their own PMC Wagner Group. Russia's Active Measures worked so well that Azov has inserted itself perhaps permanently in the Russian psyche, building up the unit as an evil, Terminator-type, unkillable, brutal fighting machine, to be feared by every Babushka and Dedushka hiding in a corner in Siberia.  So how did it get to this point? What was unique with Azov that made it different from other, even more popular battalions like Right Sector, Aidar, Dnipro? Why Azov?

                    Well Regulated Militias

            Outside of Ukraine, it is hardly mentioned why there was a need for volunteer battalions in the first place. We need to stop thinking of Ukraine as an independent country but as a former proxy state of Russia. Up until Maidan and into 2014 all of Ukrainian life including politics was blanketed by Russian influence. From the businesses to banking systems, media, oligarchs and corruption it was Russia pulling the strings. As a new independent country, Ukraine was unable to remove the Kremlins training wheels or cut Moscow's umbilical cord, (equivalent to Belarus today). The only thing that Russia wasn’t assisting with was the formation of a competent army. Any Western influence was quickly silenced, any military spending was corrupted through the Russian oligarch system of post-Soviet privatization. 

        In October 2012, Yuri Syrotyuk, a Ukrainian parliament member, stood up in a security and defense committee meeting to announce that if Ukraine didn't reverse the trend of deterioration in its military and change its defense strategy, "we're going to see Russian troops on our soil within a year." He was right, Viktor Yanukovych began gutting and defunding the military as soon as he came into office. Yanukovych thought a weaker military was just fine for Ukraine, shifting spending towards interior ministry forces which he had more direct control over, and arguing that Putin was a close friend who could provide security if the need arose. From 2010 to 2013, the Yanukovych government also transferred 25 military bases to local governments, who then leased them to private companies, according to Nadiya Andrikevych, Mr. Syrotyuk's assistant. In November 2013, the government made plans to transfer another 96 buildings and pieces of military land, but Yanukovych was ousted before the transfers could be completed. The most disturbing fact was that Russia was using Odesa's ports to smuggle cold war stockpiles of arms & heavy equipment, from not only Russia and Transnistria but Ukraine as well. Known as the Odessa Network, its been confirmed that Russian-friendly oligarchs and corrupt military officials were working with GRU, ex KGB, even CIA, using off books shell companies, (including the notorious Far West Ltd) selling off Ukrainian military stockpiles starting in the 90s up until 2013.

        Having Ukraine weak and influential was Putin's goal up until he felt he had enough political support to put Ukraine back under the fold. Unfortunately for Putin, the Ukrainian will to be free of Russian influence was more than the Kremlin could take, because if Ukrainians can start thinking for themselves then most certainly Russians could too. 

Due to the lack of a competent standing army, small groups of Ukrainians started forming volunteer police patrol units. With the corrupt Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) being under Russian influence, the military and Police broke and useless, militias were formed around individual cities and townships. To raise money for units and equpment, the Ministry of Defense launched a public funding campaign, in which Ukrainians dial 565 on their mobile phone and pledge as little as 5 hryvnia, or 42 cents. As of May 28 2014, the ministry had collected 124 million hryvnia ($10.6 million) from the public. Western nations also stepped in, including the United States, which has given about $3.5 million to the ministry in nonlethal aid. Some Ukrainian oligarchs also came forward to help. Ihor/Igor Kolomoisky, the Kyiv-appointed governor of Dnepropetrovsk, pledged money to buy fuel for Ukrainian tanks and military vehicles.  Kolomoisky also financed at least three battalions of paramilitary troops fighting against the separatist rebels.

        The first  unit was "Dnipro-1" police regiment, also known as Dnepr-1, and originated in Dnipropetrovsk around the same time the "Little Green Men" of Wagner and Russian nationalists started the annexation of Crimea and launching the insurgency in the Donbas and Eastern Ukraine. Dnipropetrovsk, which was a majority Russian-speaking city, where FSB was operating freely, was expected to fall into Russian hands very quickly. With the army being led by Kremlin collaborators, The Ukrainian 25th Airborne was forced to abandon all their military equipment, including tanks, BMPs, artillery etc. The members who refused to switch allegiances to Russia were forced to take busses and civilian vehicles back to Dnipropetrovsk. Demoralized and dejected, the remaining members at first refused to take part in the defense of the city, forcing Governor Igor Kolomoisky and Mayor Ivan Kulichenko to organize a defense. Different volunteer units began to form, funded by various charities and oligarchs forming the Dnipro Battalion, (which is still fighting to this day).. Due to being one of the first units to form, and the unit's proximity to the Donbas, volunteers often received minimal training before deploying to engage insurgents. 

        Inspired by the initial actions of Kolomoysky, the new Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov—a Baku-born Russian-speaker of ethnic Armenian background—decided to promote and gradually formalize the creation of voluntary units that would come to be attached to his ministry’s regional directorates. While trying to position himself as a Ukraine Nationalist hero, he would shockingly go on to rehire much of the same Berkut that were responsible for the carnage during Maidan and allowed the stream of controversial Russian nationalists into Ukraine to join up the territorial defense forces (mainly Azov)

        Soon, the new Ukrainian National Guard, SBU (Security Service of Ukraine), Ministry of Defense and different politicians, started to actively encourage and support the creation of such units and to oversee, finance, or supervise them. As a result, a whole array of armed volunteer units emerged that were initially more or less separate and independent from the regular structures of Ukraine’s police, special services, as well as the army, and constituted then a new pillar of power within the transforming post-Euromaidan Ukrainian state. The newly created semi-formal battalions of Ukraine’s various armed forces were initially to be equipped only with light arms and weapons, not heavier than grenade launchers. However, in light of the escalation of violence in the Donets Basin, they became increasingly equipped also with heavier artillery and armed vehicle models. The only thing needed was financial support, after tracing the money, it was noted that 8 out of the largest “battalions” formed, (which included 5,000 volunteers), were being financed in part or in full by Avakov, Donetsk oligarch Rinaat Akhmetov and the Ukrainian-Jewish oligarch Kolomoysky. In total 42 territorial defense battalions were formed under the Interior Ministry. (Only Azov used Nazi imagery or symbolism.) 

    Kolomoysky would indeed offer financial benefits to volunteers and to Azov's early formation, but the actual arming and financing of the Battalion would come from the controversial Sergey "Botsman" Koriktikh, which would confirm Azov's early financial ties directly to the Kremlin. (The whole story behind the financing of Azov will be in our part 6 expose "The Curious Case of the Boatsman")

        As civil defense units started spreading through Ukraine, the need for military training led these units to partner with some far-right militias, often forming relationships with members with opposing ideologies. A minority of volunteers were mainly small roving packs of football Ultra hooligans, used in part by local thugs and mafia as muscle for hire and event security. Some of them were even hired to intimidate voters and to fix the election for pro-Russian politicians and Yanukovych just a few years prior. Russian media however, would dismiss every volunteer unit as Neo Nazi gangs and "Bandera Death squads" However it was only Dmitry Yarosh, founder of the politically motivated Right Sector who first began openly recruiting volunteers by using the writings of Stepan Bandera as motivational  "Nationalist" ideology outside of Western Ukraine, and tried distancing themselves from Neo Nazis.

Ukraines Ultra Hooligans, many associated with Neo Nazi and far-right, were among the first to protect the crowd of Maidan against the hired Russian "titushky" far-right thugs, and the anti-Maidan, were also among the first to join local militia units in 2014. To note, it is Russia that still has the largest numbers Neo Nazi/far-right ultras in the world. 

 

        Though the majority of Ukrainian nationalists were not traditional paganist Neo Nazis, some took their queue from Russian Football Ultras and youth firms. Many of the younger ones, ignorant to world view, naively used Nazi symbols as a "troll" against the establishment and “Stalinists”, Russian media would refer back to Soviet-era anti-Ukrainian propaganda by calling them “Banderists”. A term revived by Vladislav Surkov who knew that in order to influence the masses, a little dose of 60's Soviet propaganda was needed. Russians Ultras on the other hand were more traditional Neo Nazis, many practiced Russian Rodnovery paganism and were inherently more violent. Prior to Maidan in 2014 Russian and Ukrainian Ultras connected through their football firms: CSKA Kyiv and CSKA Moscow, as well as Metallist Kharkiv and Spartak Moscow. Majority of the Ultras in Russia and Ukraine were already connected through hardcore music. So when the war broke out many Russian Ultras felt Ukraine was just part of Russia, so the idea of fighting a war against people they didnt consider an enemy did not appeal to them. Though by 2022, the CSKA firms in Russia would go on to have their own Battalion fighting for Russian Imperialism called the Espanola Battalion

Building the Brand

        After Maidan, controlling propaganda and media events for Eastern Ukraine was imperative for Surkov; Firehosed media and Active Measures techniques would work fine. However in order to build more militant, Pro Russian sentiment and global anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, Surkov and GRU would need to invest in the long-game techniques of a Soviet Psywar tactic known as Reflexive Control. Using a myriad of tactics like false flag attacks, and staged provocations, propagated in the Pro-Russian media. They would even give Azov a weekly TV show to promote their platform, in return Azov would provide security for their Pro-Russian rallies and TV events. Azov, was in theory, promoting their stance of Ukrainian sovereignty but at the same time frightening the mainly Russian-speaking audience. In turn, this pushed many Ukrainians toward Russia and the Kremlin. A familiar strategy that was very common in the Soviet propaganda of its day. What made Azov unique was that they were one of the only volunteer battalions that openly promoted Neo-Nazi beliefs and white supremacy rhetoric. In part due to the fact they were influenced by Russian Nationalists. 

        Despite what Russian propagandists would like to tell you, the majority of the other battalions were not Neo Nazi but more traditional nationalists and ordinary civilians. Since Yanukovych's military budget cuts in 2012-13 were debilitating. The militias were formed out of necessity, and just included people from the communities that they were from, some had hard right and extremist views but to deduce a group as all "Neo Nazi" or extremists is absolutely preposterous.

         With obvious exceptions, Ukrainian Nationalism was not traditionally Islamaphobic either, in fact they would align and even support the rights of Crimean Tatars. Russia's Neo Nazi Movement however was first and foremost built around anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric, with a great abhorrence against "dark-skinned" Chechens, Tajik, and Dagestanians. Putin and Surkov were responsible in staging several high-profile false flag attacks in 1999 blaming Chechens, and creating restrictive Terrorist bills that would, in turn, give Russia unlimited powers of arrest in 2008. One of the unattended consequences of these high-profile, Anti-Chechen, media campaigns was the huge rise of Neo-Nazi gangs that would roam the streets brutally attacking any dark-skinned person they encountered, resulting in thousands of murders and unspeakable hate crimes. 

        Interestingly also was that in 2019, Brent Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter in New Zealand, who was radicalized by the Russian Neo Nazi scene, in part due to its anti-Islamic rhetoric and Russian propaganda techniques online. He planned on joining some of his Russian comrades from Wotanjugen in joining Azov but was kicked out of Ukraine by Azov leadership due to threats against Ukrainian Muslims and fights with Tatar Azov Brigade members. After returning to New Zealand, he was apprehended on the way to the airport and had tickets to fly to Russia directly after the Mosque shooting, with plans on joining famed American Neo Nazi FBI agent and accused Russian spy, Rinaldo Nazzaro, (who moved the HQ of his Neo Nazi militia "The Base" to St Petersburg, with the intention to train recruits in Wagner Group). Many of these fractures in Ideology may seem obvious in hindsight but the history with Russia is more complicated and blurry than anyone realized.

Bratstvo

            "It all goes back to Dmytro Korchynsky" (who we fully covered in part 4) Korchynsky,  leader of the Bratstvo group, (whose members went on to join various volunteer units, including Azov Battalion), was a former Soviet KGB agent and a long-time FSB informant, whom the FSB covertly helped evade arrest in 2013-14 after an International arrest warrant was issued due to his attack against Yanukovych's offices during the Maidan riots. Also secretly, word of his "friendly relations" with Russian nationalists in Moscow came out to Ukrainian intelligence and eventually the media, leading him to publicly deny any cooperation with the Kremlin. Russia even labeled him a terrorist and wanted fugitive, but the evidence of his cooperation is undeniable. In 2005 he was invited to lecture at the Kremlin-affiliated Nashi (Ours) Youth camp run by Vladislav Surkov who at the time was working as a deputy Chief for the Putin Administration. 

        After a 2004 arrest in Moscow, his charges got mysteriously thrown out and in June 2005  Surkov invited Korchynsky to be involved in a series of discussions regarding future alliances in Ukraine and planning out details of future participation in actions against Western influence. The event called “Europe: Reviewing a Year of Change”, which was in itself a Soviet-style Western bashing conference, was attended by prominent right-wing figures and white supremacists whose goal was to unify the Slavic cultures against the Western influence of Slavic Society. His talking points could be lifted straight out of an FSB handbook and he was even quoted saying Russian funds and organizations should be focused more on preventing Western-style protests like the 2004 “Orange revolution” in Ukraine, in which Bratstvo surprised everyone by supporting Putin and the Russian administration. In Part 4 we covered Korchynsky’s work with Anti-Ukrainian nationalist Alexander Dugin between 2004 and 2007, Dugin whose only real purpose in life was to erase Ukraine off the map, destroy its culture and unify the borders of Ukraine and Russia. Korchynsky, along with his deputy from Bratstvo Aleksy Arestovich went on to speak for Dugin's Far-right rally in Moscow in 2005 calling for a unified war against the Atlantic civilization. 

Dmytro Korchynsky, considered to be the founding father of modern Ukrainian Nationalism, 
however his early collaboration with Alexander Dugin and questionable pro-Russian actions labeled him an agent provacatuer of the Kremlin and is believed to be the dark hand behind the FSBs infiltration of the pro-Maidan defense force.  Something he has vehemently denied. Despite the fact of incidents of Bratstvo members choosing to break off to join Russian separatists in 2014 

      Awkward as it may sound, the links between one of the founding fathers of Ukrainian nationalism to the FSB, making Korchynsky one of the most complicated cases in Ukraine's history. Especially since one of Korchynsky’s close confidants in Bratstvo; Oleksander Matyushin, a former coordinator of the Moscow-based National Bolshevik Party and activist for Russki Obraz (the Russian Image party), was secretly cooperating with Kremlin siloviki and wasone of Dugins most devoted participants at Eurasian Youth Union. Matyushin would go on to start the pro-Russian Neo-Nazi battalion Varyrag in 2013 in Donetsk and would help organize a militia for the Russian side of the Separatist movement in Donbas. Varyrag members would play a special role for the FSB during Maidan as well as playing a role for the events in 2014 now known as the Russian Spring. Korchynsky was also instrumental in the negotiations that led to the lease of the current Russian naval base on the Black Sea in Crimea, an idea most every Ukrainian nationalist opposed.

Korchynsky sitting alongside his deputy Alexy Arestovich and Alexander Dugin at a RIA Novosti press conference in Moscow. Arestovich would publically denounce his involvement with Bratstvo. Claiming he was working undercover for the GUR. However, accusations of both Korchynsky and Arestovych being agents of the Kremlin continue in Ukraine to this day.

         If that's not enough, we now know Korchynsky covertly assisted the Kremlin in on of the most egregious example of overt FSB meddling in the Ukrainian far right during Maidan. On Dec 1 2013 at the steps of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration building, a group of masked men in all black wearing the old SNA logo (pre-Azov) armbands, were claiming they were Ukrainian nationalists, egging on the young protestors and instructing Right Sector and Patriots of Ukraine on how best to storm the administration building 

        Who were those troublemakers? The pro-democratic media and the opposition were quick to denounce them as provocateurs, ‘titushki’ – a term that has entered the Ukrainian political dictionary, after the May 2013 disturbances in Kyiv, when a group of young sportsmen – among them Vadym Titushko – were hired by the authorities to attack the opposition and journalists. The story on December 1st was more complicated. 

        Video footage uploaded on YouTube later that day, revealed two white minivans owned by the State Security Administration, which had brought a few dozen unknown people in civilian clothes to the yard close by the police cordon on Bankova Street. Almost all of them wore masks and yellow armbands with the wolf’s hook symbol; and were clearly battle-equipped. The black wolf’s hook on yellow armbands revealed their political affiliation: the Social-National Assembly (SNA) or the new Patriots Of Ukraine, a largely Kyiv-based neo-Nazi organization, (who largely opposed the EU integration, caught numerous times burning the flags of NATO and Israel) and which hoped to register as a political party in 2011 but failed. Its leaders and ideologues are currently jailed on dubious charges. The only affiliated leader not in jail was (yes you guessed it) Dmytro Korchynsky of Bratstvo.

        

        According to one Right Sector member, the crowd was instigated by several “men in their forties” who “were egging them on saying, ‘Come on guys, don’t be afraid! Now, we’ll destroy them! Come on, attack!’ These people were not known to any of the nationalists and incidentally, these men did not take part in the fighting itself.” The civilian protestors forced the rioters away from the government buildings, saying that such provocations and unwarranted destruction would only play into Putin's hands and overall plan to paint Maidan as a far-right coup and Ukraine as a destabilized and unruly government overthrown by Nazi radicals, in turn further emboldening the Putin controlled anti- loyalists and make more excuses for a more violent crackdown on Maidan itself. 

        To this day it is unknown how many of these agitators were among the Ukrainian nationalists, or who the masked individuals were, but it is widely believed that only Korchynsky could have provided such intelligence to launch such provocations. This incident was almost an exact repeat of what had happened on 9th March 2001 when, on the very same Bankova Street, a group of unknown individuals had instigated clashes with the Berkut special police force, which had then been used, by the authorities as a pretext, to arrest several leading members of the “Ukraine without Kuchma” campaign. 

        The one thing that is clear, is that the arrival of the far-right extremists with the wolfs hook arm badges was instigated by the Yanukovych led State Security Services via white unmarked vans with government plates. Those events and Korchynsky's links to Vladislav Surkov, Nashi and Alexander Dugin, would be the most obvious example of how Russia indirectly helped influence the actions of Ukrainian nationalists during Maidan and connect the links to the formation of the Azov Battalion.

Korchynsky rallying for Dugin at  Slavyanskaya Square standing next to notorious anti-Ukrainian Neo Nazi and Eurasian Union leader Egor Kholmogorov

        In a good example of peculiar and suspicious incidents, in just 4 years after Maidan, in March 2018, members of Bratstvo and other activists organized a confrontation in front of the main studio of a popular pro-Ukrainian tv channel Zik in Kyiv. Bratstvo was there to protest the sale of the station to the highly unpopular pro-Putin puppet Viktor Medvechuk. In order to quell the protest the police were called and showed up followed by a vigilante group of ultra-nationalists linked to the Azov Movement; the National Corps led by Sergey Botsman. However, the group didn't come to protest but to defend the station and Medvechuk. This openly suspicious action shined the light on nefarious play among some members Azov and publically demonstrated the open divisions between the Azov Movement and that of its founders. Ironically 2 years later, the same National Corps and their controversial leader and undercover FSB agent "Botsman", attacked the offices of Medvechuks Opposition Platform For Life political party.

(FOR MORE DETAILS ON BRATSTVO AND KORCHYNSKY CLICK HERE)

Russia's Nashi (Ours) youth movement which declared itself to be a democratic, anti-fascist, anti-"oligarchic-capitalist" movement. Created in 2005 by Vladislav Surkov and Neo Nazis from OB88 during Surkovs "Managed Nationalism", but ended up being nothing short of a Putin-led Hitler Youth camp. Nashi was also used as pawns for anti-Ukrainian protests in Moscow in 2009 by rallying for Yanukovych. Ella Pamfilova, Medvedev's human rights advisor, resigned over comments she made, saying that Nashi activists had "pawned their souls to the devil" and that she "feared they might to come to power one day. In total, the group indoctrinated over 150k young Russians into a zombified  cult

For Ukraine?       

            Another founding member of Azov was Igor Mosiychuk, who was also a member with Korchynsky at UNA/UNSO, Patriots Of Ukraine Ukraine and the infamous Svaboda party. Mosiychuk was Azovs press secretary briefly in 2014, removed after making public antisemitic comments. Turns out despite his militant Pro-Ukraine rhetoric, he was caught up in a series of scandals in local elections in Vasilkiv in 2010, when he and another future Azov commander Volodymyr Shpara were found working for Pro Russian  Sergey Ivashcenko, who was running for Mayor on (Putin controlled) Yanukovych’s Party of Regions ticket. They along with a group of other fascists intimated voters and bullied opponents, eventually falsifying the election results altogether. After the election of the Pro Russian candidate, Mosiychuk and Shpara were rewarded with seats on the city council, but get this; as members of the right-wing “For Ukraine” party (while they fixed the election for a pro-Russian). Mosiychuk and Korchnsky’s wife would eventually serve a term in Ukraine's parliament in 2014 for the Ukrainian far-right party Lyashko. 

            It's hard to say what the status of Ukrainian right-wing politics would be if it was not for the Russian interference in Ukraine's internal affairs in Crimea. The rising social demand for militant patriotism provided previously marginal far-right activists with new political space. These developments were only partly a result of the growing external threat to Ukraine and increasing existential concerns, if not panic, especially amongst Ukraine’s elite and youth regarding the Kremlin’s actions and intentions in Ukraine. 

        The biggest surprise is the limited success of Ukraine’s far right in the Presidential, Parliamentary, and local elections of 2014–2015, and the low number of ultra-nationalists—no more than 13 out of the current 423 MPs— in the first post-Euromaydan Verkhovna Rada elected in October 2014, public support for right-wing extremism remains relatively weak. This is remarkable if one takes into account the far-reaching social, mental, and cultural effects of the profound economic crisis and ongoing pseudo-civil war in Eastern Ukraine triggered by Russia’s covert intervention since 2014. However, inside Russian GRU and FSB they were already aware of the rising far right in Ukraine, it's only logical. Their assessment was that by controlling and influencing Ukrainian right-wing politics, would be the best course of action for this next step of Active Measures.

         The political party Svaboda was already compromised thanks to their corruption and odd partnerships, the main goal was to infiltrate a militant group that would be able to stir up chaos within the Russian-speaking and moderate Ukrainian community. The more militant a group would act for the violent oppression and paranoia against Russia, the more political support would arise for Russian interference. As an added bonus, using the Neo-Nazi narrative would be beneficial due to the West's nervous obsession with Nazi symbolism.The  Russian fear of Ukrainian Nationalism goes back over a century. The GRU already created the narrative for Western media to use against Ukraine, they just needed a single group to focus on and promote, not just for the Western media but for the internal Russian population as a whole. If the West was able to secure trillions in funding and political support for one man like Bin Laden, then a feared militant Neo nazi group would work equally well for Russia’s Imperialistic goals in Ukraine.

       

Patriots of Ukraine

Azov Logo derives from the Social National Assembly (SNU) motto  "National Idea" or "Idea of a Nation" and the latin letters N and I which was used as their logo. Biletsky later incorporated it for Patriots of Ukraine, later to become the Azov Shield. 

            In December 2013 members of Korchynsky's Bratstvo crew (including Azov's original deputy commander for political affairs and ideological leader of Patriots of Ukraine Oleg Ondorozhenko) along with some members of Patriots of Ukraine (who arrived via State Security vans) would join the Right-Wing Sector of Maidan and would participate in storming the Presidential Administration building, attempting to attract media attention to overthrow the same President that a few years earlier, some of them helped get elected... Yanukovych. Later in 2014, the same guys from Bratstvo  announced a partnership with associates from “the Patriot of Ukraine” to create a new organization, that would make-up the core of a volunteer battalion that would change Ukraine's image forever.

December 2013 in Maidan. Right Sector, including members of Bratstvo and Patriots of Ukraine partnered together to burn flags of Yanukovych and his Party Of Regions party.

       Patriots of Ukraine's beginnings is itself fraught with controversy. Financed by corrupt politician and oligarch Yuri Zbitnev,  who helped form UNA in 1990 with FSB agent provocateur himself, Dmytro Korchynsky. From 1995 to 2000 Zbitnev went on to head the Commission on Mortgage Lending under overtly Russian-aligned President: L. Kuchma, who introduced Zbitnev to Viktor Medvechuk. It would be during that time that Zbitnev, for some reason suddenly changed his social-democratic, left-center views to far-right ultra-nationalist ones; bordering on fascism and Nazism. He would even run for president in 2004 under his New Force party, in order to draw voters away from Yuschenko and to try and help elect Russian-controlled Yanukovych. Medvechuk in turn began to help finance Zbitnev's adventures with SNU and the formation of the new version of Patriots Of Ukraine with Andriy Biletsky. Patriots would be involved in several high-profile actions from 2008-2012 that would contain unusually high amounts of Nazi symbolism and Hitler rhetoric, including the burning flags of NATO, Poland and Israel. (Biletsky and the leaders of Patriots would be arrested in 2011) It would be later discovered that Patriots were overseen by Yanukovych loyalist and former SBU Lieutenant General Anatoly Prysiazhniuk, who worked as a high-ranking member of Party Of Regions. Yanukovych began mopping up these same nationalists he covertly financed in grand media spectacles, trying to secure the support of the scared Russian-speaking communities and register new voters from Eastern Ukraine. (Not unlike the Medvedev/Putin strategy in Russia in 2008) 

        Zbitnev, despite financing Ukrainian Nationalists and starting political organizations like New Force and All Ukrainian Party, was involved in a series of scandals that paved the way for pro-Russian traitor Medvechuk's control of the media and working in support of the Russia-backed Yanukovych administration. Ironically Biletsky and leaders of Patriots and SNA were arrested for their provocations and held as “political prisoners” by the Yanukovych administration.  After being released, the group would proceed to form an entity while holed up in a hotel in Kyiv.  This group dressed in black, calling themselves “The Little Black Men”, in direct response to the Russian soldiers dressed in all green with no patches or ID.

Zbitnev and Biletsky with Patriots Of Ukraine

          Biletsky wound up getting into a violent altercation with Russian Separatists in Kharkiv that resulted in the first official deaths by a Ukrainian nationalist group. Almost immediately anti-Ukrainian and Russian-backed media sources, in unison, announced, in a choreographed propaganda attack, that Ukraine was being overrun by “Bandera Death Squads” and that atrocities and genocide were being committed in Kharkiv against Russian speaking population. 

        Interestingly, prior to his anti-Russian persona that is portrayed in today's media, Biletsky started out against the Orange Revolution and even called for more cooperation with Russia in order for Ukraine to have a stable future, stating "Ukrainians and Russians are one people".. Biletsky would appear with Zbitnev and Korchynsky during the 2008 Bratstvo "Intelligence Briefing" for the Ukrainian press, stating that Russia was at war with Ukraine and will annex Crimea by 2010 if measures would not be urgently taken. Korchynsky went on to call for suicide bombings and terrorist attacks by Ukrainian Nationalists against Russian oil pipelines and businesses. This head-scratching news conference set the tone for Putin's propaganda of bloodthirsty Banderists killing Russian speakers, and would indeed provide fuel for Paul Manafort and Yanukovych's Presidential campaign, (which was financed by Viktor Medvechuk). The whole event seemed staged and criticized by the media in Ukraine and confirmed as a Kremlin provocation years later, coordinated through Paul Manafort's office at Party Of Regions. (Read more on part 4 of our series)

Korchynsky and Biletsky at the Bratstvo press conference in 2008

        By the time Biletsky was with Azov in 2014, Firehosed propaganda attack against Ukraine were used in hundreds of media outlets as a cut n paste propaganda push in order to raise money for pro-Russian Separatists to counteract the Ukrainian groups, furthermore, the Kremlin would be able to use these series of events as well as the face of Andrey Biletsky as preparation for the covert intervention in Ukraine and in the public opinion manipulation campaign, calling for the immediate annexation of Crimea. One major point everyone refuses to report on is that this group of “Little Black Men” were in part ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, who couldn’t even speak Ukrainian let alone care who Bandera was. Yet Biletsky cited Bandera as their ideological influence in interviews with the media. 

      

The first formation of Azov, "The Little Black Men"

         Azov as we know today was formed in May 2014 and consisted of 80 men from different groups like the formerly imprisoned Biletsky and Patriots of Ukraine with the help of Zbitnev's pals; Korchnskyy and Mosiychuk of Bratstvo. A month earlier Biletsky made an agreement with Minister of Interior, Arsen Avakov to become members of the National Guard in order to legally possess firearms. Biletsky would broker a deal with a shady Russian nationalist named Botsman, who in one day changed all of Patriots of Ukraine financial troubles, but the source of the money was highly suspicious. In 2021 information would surface linking Azov's guns and money to the Kremlin, confirming Botsman was involved in the smuggling operations out of Odesa, which included weapons and arms smuggling facilitated by Russia, using Odesa ports and Ukrainian shipping lanes.

   In August 2014, The new Interior Minister Avakov granted the rank of police Lieutenant Colonel to Biletsky.  Avakov's party The People’s Front also brought Biletsky into the military council of the party and apparently planned to officially support his candidacy in the parliamentary election, but, due to the opposition to such a move from the Ukrainian expert community and representatives of national minorities, the People’s Front was forced to re-think its decision. However, the People’s Front, in particular Avakov and his advisor Anton Gerashchenko, still supported Biletsky unofficially, and he was elected into the parliament in a single-member district in Kyiv. After the elections, Avakov appointed Vadym Troyan, deputy commander of the Azov battalion and a top member of the Patriots Of Ukraine, as head of the Kyiv region police. Its no coincidence that Avakov, Biletsky, Troyam and Korchynsky got their start in the same city, Kharkiv.

2010, A young Andriy Biletsky, who is an ethnic Russian speaker, saying Ukraine can only flourish with a strong relationship with Moscow. You wont see this video on Western media

Bandera Death Squad

          The bloody events on May 9th 2014 in Mariupol forever stained the memory of Victory Day in Ukraine. 15 DPR terrorists, armed by GRU, stormed the police station during a meeting between Dnipro Battalion leaders and the local police, killing the police chief and the commander of Dnepr, whose eyes were gouged, ears cut and entrails gutted. The newly formed Azov along with Dnipro Battalion were instrumental in a special forces raid that wound up taking back the police station after a days worth of Russian provocations cost the lives of 11 people. Russian media claimed it was Azov who killed the police and innocent civilians, while the facts proved otherwise. Identifying the armed group that stormed the building as Russian "Separatists".

The storming of the police station in Mariupol, some of the men identified were involved in similar events in Kharkiv and Donetsk

         With Azov's heroic actions in Mariupol on May 9th 2014, it would seem to an outsider looking in, that nothing notorious would be at play. The actions and deeds seemed black and white. Azov clearly was fighting against Russian-backed separatists and their motives are clearly aligned with the new government. However, upon stepping back, a few questions could start to arise. 

        First and foremost we already know, unlike half of Bratstvo, Korchynsky left Azov almost immediately, with the whispers that he was a long-time Russian collaborator, with enough clearance from the FSB to be holding court with a Rasputin-like manipulator like Surkov and planned events with notorious anti-Ukrainian Dugin and we also know that the Bratstvo members who followed Korchynsky into Russia to participate in the Eurasian conferences in the 2000s ended up splitting off, joining the pro-Russian Separatists in the East under the flag of Varyrag Battalion. Biletsky and the Patriots Of Ukraine were financed by long-time Kremlin linked provocateur Zbitnev. Then Biletsky and the Patriots were arrested by Yanukovych's SBU at the same time they were cooperating with them.  Regardless, the militant super group that The Kremlin has been searching for would be created. There was no vetting process for volunteers, no background check.

        The next step for Azov was the altercation in Kharkiv, in which the headlines in Moscow were already written. The media narrative of the Banderist Nazi Death Squads were born. In 2015, after Russian troops, who would later be known as Wagner shelled civilian neighborhoods in Mariupol, killing 30 innocent civilians, a huge shift in pro Russian sentiment occurred in the mostly Russian-speaking city, shocked at Russia's brutal actions, the local population would turn to the only option they had, Azov. Then miraculously a group of 80 disorganized men with light arms, beat back hundreds of Separatists and FSB and GRU Spetsnaz from the second largest Army in the world, equipped with mechanized armor, and proceeded to kick them just outside of artillery range of Mariupol.

Surkov Leaks

        After the election of Yanukovych in 2010 Surkov calculated that there would be a huge rise in Anti-Russian militancy and activism, so the Kremlin proceeded to release some of their worst and most violent criminals and send them to Ukraine, their ideology was of no importance but the necessity to pump Ukraine full of criminals and Neo Nazis was a crucial step for the plan of keeping Ukrainian politics unstable and unpalatable to the West. Russia had its own internal operation with funding Neo nazi groups like NSO years prior and used their violence as "scarecrow" psyops..From 2004 to 2012 - 509 people were killed and 3436 were injured or wounded by far right/Neo Nazi violence. However, according to SOVA Center, the actual number is actually 3 times that, as most violence went unreported. FSB began arresting Neo-Nazis after 2008 (prior to that most received slaps on the wrists even for heinous murders) they would have excellent intelligence or "files" on these criminals that would easily follow them into Ukraine.

 A 2007 feature on Russias Slavic Union, Though many were split on the Ukraine issue,  some organizations  were closely linked to Russian military as well as providing the original volunteer talent pool for the Novorossiya Separatists and of the notorious Wagner Group 

        Along with some of the early events and the seeming quick rise of Azov in the political sphere, were other questionable organizations that seemingly merged spontaneously with Azov. One of these groups was the Russian Misanthropic Division and their leader Mikhail Oreshnikov, who was a pivotal case, after his arrest in 2008 for the stabbing of 2 anti-fascists outside a protest in Chuvashia Govt House, he was approached by the prosecutor (FSB agent) with a deal of collaborating by informing on Neo Nazi operations within Russia. With Putin's new anti-terror law passed in 2006, It gave the FSB complete control and oversight of all Anti Terror operations. By setting up an anti-terror committee (NAC) FSB would not be constrained by laws and other formalities, making FSB or in this case Putin, GOD. The gist of the law was to focus on far-right extremism and to infiltrate its ranks with the end goal of sending informants to Ukraine. The level of Oreshnikov's participation is unclear, what is known is that after serving an 18-month sentence for firebombing, Oreshnikov and his organization The Misanthropic Division, along with a slew of FSB informants relocated to Ukraine,.  Misanthropic Division took part in the Maidan protests, clashes with opponents of the Maidan in Kharkov, and some of them took part in the hostilities in Donbas on the side of Kyiv. More than a dozen of its Russian members fought in Azov. Among the Russian fighters in Azov was FSB agent Sergey Botsman(“Malyuta”) Korotkikh (one of the leaders of the National Socialist Society (NSO)); who would coordinate the open recruitment of Russians into Ukraine, and arrange their entrance with his network of SBU and FSB border officials. He would smuggle in hundreds of Russian Neo Nazis from 2014 to 2020. Among them were alleged informants; Alexander Valov of Murmansk, Andrey "Dedov" Chuenkov of Format 18 & Restrukt, Alexey Levkin, Ivan "Fritz" Mikheev and Mikhael Shalankevich of Wotonjugen. (Read the full story in Part 6)

        Valov would prove an interesting case, his involvement with FSB has been widely discussed since his days in Russia. In 2013, he was charged with beating up an Uzbek man as well as establishing an extremist group. In the summer of 2014, Valov was invited into the FSB’s investigative department and presented with a choice: either he agreed to set up and lead a provincial branch of the RNU [Russian National Unity] and send volunteers to the Donbas or he would face additional charges for “inciting international hatred” and “publicly calling for extremist activity”. If he agreed, the FSB promised that the existing charges would be dropped and he would receive financial aid and political backing. He claimed he refused. At least that would be his cover story, despite his refusal,  he still managed to escape his incarceration, and the FSB miraculously allowed him to flee to Ukraine and participate in the anti-terror operation as part of the Azov Battalion. 

Wotanjugen

         Many Russian far-Right extremists and notorious Neo Nazis ended up in Ukraine despite having warrants, other violent and psychotic militants were just released from prison altogether. Others, for reasons that remain obscure to outsiders, were never punished for crimes that they had committed. These controversial and violent figures began to mysteriously appear in Ukraine as early as the end of February-beginning of March 2014 up until 2019. Some of them, like Alexey Levkin, and Mikhael Shalankevich ended up with Azov Movement and their affiliate Wotanjugen,  What's interesting is that their extreme overt Nazi symbolism and publicized violent rhetoric were done specifically in line with Kremlin propaganda, helping push the narrative of Ukrainian Nazis. 

Levkin openly promoted  "Asgardsrei" an annual Neo Nazi concert on his Wotanjung Telegram channel, in which his far-right band “M8L8TH” played. A sparsely attended event involving a wide range of idiots and hooligans slam dancing to horrible heavy metal which included an out-of-tune Russian version of Insane Clown Posse. Russian media would propagate this event for months. 

        Wotanjugen was the brainchild of Alexi Levkin and Ivan Mikheev. Mikheev started out as a football hooligan with local firm of Dynamo Kirov and a founding member of the Kirov chapter of DPNI in 2007. DPNI, (who later would make headlines for the recruitment of Russian volunteers to fight as DPR separatists and gathered donations for Russians fighting in Donbas) was closely linked to Kremlin insiders and was being closely monitored by FSB. Mikheev would rack up numerous arrests from 2006-14 for violent crimes, extremism and terrorism, which were all brushed away with a slap on the wrist, it is believed he was recruited as an FSB informant following a 2007 arrest. Mikheev would make his way to Ukraine in 2014, where he would link up with Levkin to start Wotanjugen in Kyiv. Due to inner turmoil, he would leave Wotanjugen in 2015 after a bitter split with Levkin, and a hit on him was sanctioned by Botsman.

 

        Levkin, began his Nazi career as a member of Russian National Unity (RNU/RNE) and was involved in numerous crimes, including the assault of minorities and liberal political opponents. He vandalized Jewish and Muslim graves in Russia, and was involved in the murder of at least four people.  After being arrested in 2006 for a double murder, he was suspiciously let go by reason of insanity, with the help of his FSB handlers, who would pave his way into Ukraine in 2015 with the help of Botsman in Ukraine.

        Levkin also organized ‘Fuhrernacht’, a night of full-blown Hitler worship; and put on the neo-Nazi heavy metal concert called Asgardsrei. Shalankevich, meanwhile, was a well-known neo-Nazi in Russia who recently made his way to Ukraine despite being held on multiple criminal charges. He helped establish a street gang, Alternativa that was affiliated with Azov Movement, who continuously filmed themselves assaulting people in Moscow, then Kyiv. 

        Wotanjugend would start their own Telegram channel, run by Levkin and start the first openly run Nazi social media page in Ukraine. They would host visiting Russian Neo Nazi ultras from CSKA Moscow, a group of hardcore anti Ukrainian Russian Nationalists, whose social media is full of St George Ribbons and pro Novorossiya propaganda. A very strange scenario for such supposed "anti-Russian" Azov members. They would post disgusting videos of them attacking innocent people (LGBT and minorities) promoting violence and Hitler ideology. 

Shalankavic's friends and Moscow Neo Nazis from CSKA with Novorossiya flags & pictures of Russian separatists

Logunava (far left) and Shalankevich (far right) hosting Russian Neo Nazis from Moscow in Ukraine. Ukrainian media reported numerous stories of Russian-speaking young men and women with Nazi-related imagery marching around Kyiv downtown, boasting arms and pepper-spraying teenagers in Podol neighborhood.

        Interesting as well is that Shalankevich's Russian girlfriend Katerina Logunava, a well know Neo Nazi herself who was under house arrest in Moscow, banned from leaving the state,still somehow managed to make her way into Ukraine, despite being on movement restrictions and 24/7 monitoring by the FSB. Both Shalankevich and Logunava began recruiting and radicalizing young Kyiv teenagers into Alternativa using social media like Instagram and Telegram.

        Telegram, which is a well documented GRU surveillance app, is one of FSBs top tools in the propaganda war. Its estimated 70% of Wotanjugends TG channel is an international audience, the majority of those Russian. It was a one-stop shop to promote the "Ukrainian Nazi" to every corner of Russian society. and Western audiences. Despite Levkin's dream of a unified fascist Russia, he has been jumping in and out of units, trying to find a home fighting for Ukraine and despite his international popularity, he has not won many friends or gained much trust within the Ukrainian far right community.

         Wotanjugend also translated, published, and promoted the manifestos of mass murderers like the Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant and praised his attacks in 2019; the interesting part of the manifesto release was that it first appeared in Russian media not Ukrainian. The SBU would arrest Russian Neo Nazi Aleksandr “Piter” Skachkov, who was found living in Kyiv, almost a year after the attack, after paperback copies of the 70 page manifesto were found translated in Ukrainain and promoted on the Karpathian Sich Telegram channel. Skachkov ran Omsk LLC, a publishing house for Russian and Ukrainian Neo Nazi literature, with SBU accusing him of being the ringleader. Skachkov also appeared mysteriously in Ukraine in 2014, but strangely his whole history in Russia has been erased. After his 2020 arrest, all attempts by SBU to get his background information and criminal history were dismissed by FSB, prior to his arrival in Ukraine, he is a ghost. The head of the OUN battalion (formerly Azov-2) claimed Skachkov fought for them in December of 2014 to Feb 2015, and was injured in combat, but did not know much about him. Oddly the only other person who could verify him fighting with OUN was Azov-Crimea commander Stanislav Krasnov, who mentioned on a Facebook post he knew him as "Peter", and met him fighting near Donetsk airport. Though Krasnov himself was arrested for working for the FSB in 2016. On the other hand Skachkovs wife Nadzha was known to have close contacts with the Azov Movement, For example, in a now-deleted photo posted on his wife’s Facebook account on February 4, 2015, she poses holding the flag of the Azov regiment next to soldiers in black uniforms. On July 20, 2016, she published a photograph of a young man (a figure very similar to Skachkov, with whom she officially registered her marriage on April 28) in a balaclava and a T-shirt with the symbols of “Azov” against the backdrop of the idol of Perun, located on Bald Mountain in Kyiv. This temple was closely guarded in those years by the Kyiv branch of the Azov Civil Corps under the leadership of Sergei Filimonov. 

     Zabrona media mentioned that prior to his arrest, he ran a Ukrainian Telegram channel dedicated to Tarrant, with numerous amounts of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Rhetoric not common in Ukrainian far-right. “It’s hard for me to imagine a Ukrainian for whom it would be important to post something like this,” says researcher of far-right movements Vyacheslav Likhachev.  Or this: “In a future racial war, all Chechens will be destroyed.” What kind of ultra-right Ukrainian would say that?” Likhachev is sure that the channel was run by a person from Russia. The fact Tarrant spent months in Russia in 2015 and was recruited by FBI agent/FSB spy Rinaldo Nazzaro to join "The Base", on his way to Russia to join Wagner in 2019, raises more questions regarding the Christchurch shooting, apart from the fact Russian propaganda continuously blamed Ukraine and Azov.

The July 2020 arrest of  Aleksandr “Piter” Skachkov

        Again it must be repeated, with obvious exceptions, Ukrainian Nationalism was never driven ideologically towards overt racism and Hitler worshipping, it was there, but usually well hidden from media and public provocations. That's why FSB and their collaborators fought hard to get Russian Neo Nazis into Ukraine, The Russian Neo Nazis were a much better conduit to the Russian propaganda machine, which would do the rest. GRU Active Measures worked perfectly, Western media, clueless about the differences between Russian and Ukrainian far-right, found it impossible to differentiate between Russian Azov and Ukrainian Azov or Azov Movement vs Azov Battalion, they just simply repeated the Kremlin narrative that Ukraine was a haven for Neo Nazis, and the Western public was none the wiser. 

        The last high-profile case was in the autumn of 2020, when Andrey "Ded/Dedov" Chuenkov, Tesak’s comrade and a member of WotanJugend, would be smuggled into Ukraine. Dedov was a long time associate of Botsman, who personally recruited the then 19 year old Dedov into the FSB during their time at NSO. Under the protection of Surkov and the Kremlin, the young Dedov was involved in numerous political assassinations, high profile killings and kidnappings, including the brutal murder and beheading of a Russian prostitute. Dedov co-founded the Neo-Nazi group Format-18 with his partner Tesak. However, It was in fact Tesak who while in prison, confessed to the courts to numerous murders, implicating Dedov and Botsman. However, Tesak was murdered in his prison cell by the FSB, the night before he was supposed to testify in court, with the murder being listed as a suicide. Dedov would leave his life and tattoo business and escape to Ukraine the same day. Interestingly, Dedovs business partner at his Moscow tattoo shop was another Neo Nazi named Gleb Erve, who works as a propagandist RIA Novosti, who made headlines in his war correspondence after photos of his Nazi & Rodnovery tattoos came to light in International media, despite for months claiming to "de-Nazify Ukraine" in his reporting. 

Dedov's best friend and business partner in Moscow: Gleb Erve. A war reporter/blogger for FSB-affiliated RIA Novosti 

        Despite Dedov's entrance into Ukraine, he was denied from joining Azov Movement and has since been in hiding. He has also not been active in fighting since the war began. (his friends and cousins are fighting for Russia) The FSB, however, blamed him for a terrorist attack on an oil pipeline in Russia, claiming Azov neo-Nazis were behind the string of attacks on Russian soil, despite Dedov's claims that he has not been involved with Nazi activity for over a decade and certainly is not involved with Azov or "terrorist attacks". He posted a video that he was in Kyiv, walking his dog at the same time the FSB claimed he was in Russia. The Russian media even went as far as to claim the FSB arrested him and another Azov member Yuri Ionov. Unfortunately for Russian propaganda, Ionov just happened to be dead, having been killed in the spring of 2022 defending Mariupol.

Andrey Dedov

        Another suspicious arrival in 2015 was that of Neo Pagan priest Sergey Bourkeev, known in the Russian Rodnoverie community as "Jaromir". Bourkeev was one of the leaders of the neo-pagan community of the Yngling Orthodox Old Believers Church in the Stavropol Territory of Russia. Due to Yngling church use of Swastikas and  Pagan symbolism, it was labeled as an extremist organization in 2009 and banned by the Kremlin. Bourkeev led a group of over 150 Russian militant Yngling Rodnever nationalists, which included police & ex military. Their belief system pushed a great distrust in the Russian oligarch system and the Kremlin security operatis. After the bodies of 2 of his followers ended up being discovered, stabbed to death. Rumors began to circulate that his organization was infiltrated. Cases were opened after his group was accused of murdering Chechen immigrants in Stavropol. The FSB ended up raiding Bourkeev's home, unearthing a cache of weapons that included AK, rocket launchers, grenades & small arms. Bourkeevs son received a 2 year sentence, while Bourkeev was let go by the FSB, who paved his way Ukraine to join Azov. What makes Bourkeev an odd case was that he was a close associate of Vladislav Karabonov, the head of the Agency of Russian Information (ARI.ru), a popular propagandist & former nationalist who pushed the idea of Novorossiya and Russki Mir. ARI was a well-known FSB outlet that even employed the likes of Mikhail Gunin, who went on to be the deputy director of the Rosgvardia under Viktor Zolotov, who once even served as head of Vladimir Putin private bodyguards (FSO).

Sergey "Jaromir" Bourkeev

Russian Rodnovers* were prevalent early on in the original Battalion. Many Ukrainians were ideologically opposed to this perverted version of Paganism due to its pan-Russian beliefs. While the Azov Brigade of the National Guard by 2016 banned pagan rituals, Azov Movement continued to perform versions for symbolic purposes.

*Svorachi and Varyrag Battalions of the DPR were started by Rodnever pagans. While Russia's Rusich Battalion and Wagner PMC continue the practice it to this day

        Only  days after his arrival in Kyiv in Feb 2015, Bourkeev was granted full membership within the Azov Battalion, ending up on the front lines near Mariupol, granting interviews for anyone that would ask, mainly Russian speaking media in Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, while Russian media instantly invented the narrative of him being a bloodthirsty Satanist-Nazi-Pagan sorcerer of Azov. Russian propaganda choreographed his arrival in Ukraine to make claims that Azov was involved with Satanic/Pagan human sacrifice, claiming he was the official ideologist for Azov and close confidant of Andriy Biletsky, none of which were true. After the Azov Battallion disbanded in late 2015, he went on to Azov Movement's National Corp, eventually kicked out of Azov altogether by 2017. Bourkeev became critical of Ukrainian politics, especially Poroshenko, which was par the course to many Russians in Azov, who were promised passports, but ultimately denied citizenship, mainly due to rumors and suspicions of FSB informants within the Azov Movement. Under public pressure, the newly cleaned up Azov Brigade (under the UAF National Guard), would ban non-Ukrainians, as well as Nazi symbolism, ultimately distancing themselves from the Azov Movement, publically at least. 

"You know, the authorities do not want to provide Russian volunteers and volunteers from Belarus with any legal status in Ukraine, although Mr. President Poroshenko himself promised to do so. When several deputies in the Rada tried to raise the issue of Russian volunteers, they were quickly silenced, saying that all Russian volunteers were extremists."

 

- Sergey Bourkeev

Strange Occurrences

        Another strange occurrence is that of Russian blogger and defector Ilya Bogdanov who was a former FSB Lieutenant. Bogdanov who claims he was never involved in the intelligence field but just a Border Guard officer, equivalent to a Customs officer in the USA. He also stated that he was not involved in any Neo Nazi activity in Russia. 

        However, an investigation into his background revealed Bogdanov in his youth was a member of the right-wing Russian Nationalist group Wotanjugend, which at the time was an online radical publication based in Moscow that was Anti-Putin in ideological belief but Imperialistic in its narrative. He defected in Crimea through a smuggler and claimed he was recruited to join Azov. However, during his defection and initial interrogation by SBU something spooked Azov and information came forward that outed him as a Kremlin agent provocateur. He was allowed in Ukraine under strict observation, but Azov was never impressed with his story. Eventually, Bogdanov started an online blog and was an overt critic of the Kremlin using his old position at FSB to raise his online profile. He was granted citizenship and served briefly with Right Sector as well as a medic in Donbas. 

        To this day, its still unclear to what extent his defection was a real event or an FSB deception. Regardless, he was kidnapped in Kyiv in 2016 and was missing for 5 days before coming out with a press conference and a press release stating SBU saved him from FSB kidnappers intent on bringing him back to Moscow to face prosecution. Regardless of what his history was, SBU got his family out of Russia and he denounced his Neo-Nazi past. It would seem either he is and was a sleeper agent or this is one of the few stories of an undercover FSB agent sent into Ukraine to infiltrate Azov that got exposed in the media.

    Since his kidnapping, Bogdanov turned his back on Russia and the militant movement. He worked odd jobs before becoming a renowned Anti-fascist blogger who now owns a Korean Bbq restaurant in Kyiv. 

 The Bogdanov Press Conference

        Bogdanov and hundreds of Russians tried to take advantage of President Poroshenko’s bill on fast-track Ukrainian citizenship for foreign fighters and permanent residency status for foreigners who fought in Donbas. However from 2013-2015 90% of the foreign fighters were coming from one place: Russia, and they all had one thing in common, they were all Russian Nationalists, a goldmine opportunity for Surkov and GRU for their Reflexive Control inside Ukraine. The lobbyists for this legislation were none other than Azov's political wing, a strange thing to do by a group hell-bent on "committing genocide to Russian speakers". Very convenient as well with Surkov having proxy influence over former Kremlin-connected Nationalists like Korchynsky and former pro-Russian Bratsvo members, now full-time commanders within Azov. It was even highlighted in Surkov's emails (in the Surkov Leaks) in which Surkov commented on just how easy it was for Russia to control Ukrainian nationalist opposition parties, describing their actionable corruption as a “Tsunami of influence”. 

        Also very odd is the relatively low amount of actions Azov was taking against the Kremlin and pro-Russian confrontations or encountering communist and pro-Russian demonstrations in Ukraine. For example, from May 2015 to October 2018 there were 1,535 public actions (open confrontation) of the Azov Movement, Yet only 51 were directed against pro-Russian forces or Russian-related political actors in Ukraine. This is, in relative terms, a surprisingly small number of such actions for such an ultra-nationalist Ukrainian movement like Azov.

        Probably the most controversial incident in Azov's history is that of the appearance of a Dec 2019 book presentation of Italian Neo-Fascist Franco Freda at Azov's literary club Plomin (Flame). Plomin served as the cultural and intellectual branch of the ideological think tank of the Azov Movement. What made this appearance strange was that Freda is a die-hard Putin loyalist, who preached against Western influence. At the same time Azov was fighting in 2014, Freda was making statements in support of the Russian invasion of Crimea and Donbas. Calling Putin the only decent politician in Europe. Despite this fact and a huge backlash in Ukrainian circles, he still appeared in front of 40 young white supremacists at Kyiv-Mohlya University to launch his new book, which was translated into Ukrainian and published by Plomin in 2019.

The puzzling appearance of pro-Putin Italian neo-fascist and "Nazi Maoist" Franco Freda in Kyiv. 

Russian Corp

            To accommodate and attract combat-ready right-wing Russian émigrés who have moved to Ukraine, Azov created a special Russian Corps. Since it was Azov that had the popularity in Russia, they were the ones responsible for recruitment. Azov would also start up the National Corps for their political ambitions. For a short time, Azov also had a relationship with a Russian right-wing terrorist group called BORN. BORN was founded in 2008 by a pair of right-wing activists Nikita Tikhonov and Ilia Goryachev as a paramilitary branch of the Russian ultra-nationalist political party Russkii Obraz. The group was involved with a number of high-profile murders of activists as well as a popular left-wing attorney, forcing the eventual demise of the group in 2010; after the arrest of their leadership. The political wing Russkii Obraz was a highly nationalistic political group with strong ties to the Kremlin and for a time helped model Kremlin Youth groups (like Nashii) in the guise of Orthodox values, and promote partnerships between the terrorist group and high-level Duma members. Most of the members of BORN went on to Donetsk to form battalions of Neo-Nazi Russian nationalists with other Ukrainian separatists. Interestingly however after Maidan a few of BORN members went to Ukraine to join Azov, Russian neo-Nazis; Aleksandr Parinov and Roman Zheleznov aka Zukhel, (best friend of the founder of Wagner’s Rusich group Aleksey Milchakov), very strange from a pair of die-hard Kremlin militants who in 2009 worked as informants for the Kremlin Presidential Admin. In 2009 Parinov made his way to Kyiv and became well established in Ukraine. Zukhel, after an arrest, was let go with the charges mysteriously dropped with the assistance of the FSB, who would then send him to Ukraine in 2014 to join his comrade Parinov.  However, due to Zukhel's criminal convictions, he was barred from entering the country. After a few failed attempts at the border, he was mysteriously let in with the help of a city council member and right-wing Ukrainian Igor Mosichuk of Azov and the SNA. Perhaps in hindsight, a little influence from Sergey Botsman as well. Zukhel, an obvious Russian informant, was involved in several altercations with Antifa protestors and the intimidation of local journalists. Leading up to his arrest with 11 other Russian citizens in Ukraine in 2017.

        Another strange Kremlin actor affiliated with BORN was Alexi Baranovsky, a popular pro-Kremlin journalist and coordinator of Russia's Right Wing Rights Center. Baranovsky, a huge pro-Putin cheerleader was also a facilitator of a Pro Kremlin nationalistic youth movement called Verdikt which was closely linked to Surkov, that focused on anti-immigration. He would get into Kyiv in 2013 and work as a pro-Azov journalist.

Roman Zheleznov, aka Zukhel whose best friends are currently fighting for Wagner and Rusich Battalion, was arrested in 2017 along with 11 other Russian Nationalists sent to Ukraine. The group was found savagely beating gay men at random during what they called their "Occupy Pedophile" protest. Violent Russian gangs in Ukraine committing violence became the norm after 2014 

The GRU and FSB would also recruit Ukrainian-born moles already in Azov, such as in the case of the former head of the Azov-Crimea group, Stanislav Krasnov, who got caught with 30lbs of Explosives and a list of Azov members' personal information. He was corresponding with a pair of Russian GRU undercover agents Konstantin Goloskokov and Maria Koleda who were initially being recruited by Azov up until being arrested. SBU provided wiretaps of Koleda checking in with GRU leadership bragging about having access to unlimited quantities of explosives and having 13 other Ukrainian right-wingers under her influence. SBU also had a video of Krasnov meeting Goloskokov to discuss operations. Charges for Krasnov however, were never brought up or delayed and he has since stayed away from Azov. In 2022 pictures of him and his wife in a bunker fighting the Russians appeared on Twitter.

FSB GRU mole Krasnov and wife(on the left) on the Front line

In August of 2021 , SBU clamped down on Azov’s racketeering business in Kharkiv, the movement’s alma mater. Several of the top Azov movement figures got arrested. The only one who walked away without even a question was Sergey Botsman. Most of the men in the Azov Movement are nothing more than mafia-type criminals and thugs with no loyalty to Ukraine as a state. Your gonna have to wait for part 6 for the whole story

Summary

         Did Russia "invent or create" Azov? Of course not, Nationalism and right-wing groups are a natural phenomenon in every country. Ukraine's right-wing/Neo-Nazi problem is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Russian Nationalists were split on the war in Ukraine, as Nationalist groups in Russia were born under the premise of anti-government, anti-oligarch opposition. Though the majority of Russian nationalists came to Ukraine legitimately, the fact FSB paved the way for so many to enter Ukraine with pending cases or be let out of jail altogether, proves that it was done under a direct strategy.

        Why would the Kremlin covertly support an anti-Russian militant political group? Because the more Azov would use Nazi symbolism and extremist rhetoric, the more support Putin would receive among the Russian-speaking community in Donbas and abroad to justify a violent reprisal, as well as making it easier for organizations like NATO to look the other way in regards to assisting Ukraine militarily or joining them a nonstarter. Russia has bombarded the media with rapid-fire news stories, half-truths, and fakes to sow discord and paranoia to the point that Russian intervention would seem like the only logical solution. To Westerners, it might not make sense, but for many Ukrainians, who are familiar with KGB chekist methods and Russian asymmetrical warfare, have seen this angle played out and repeated time and time again, in Tajikistan, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Estonia, and Syria, just replace Nazi with Jihadi and create a desired boogeyman to eradicate. 

        Russian propaganda is systematic, professional, and surprisingly effective, especially in regard to Western society, which has no immunity to such outright lies. Western society tends to reject the black-and-white vision of the world and to consider more complex models. Typically for this worldview is to look for the truth somewhere in the middle, between the polar points of view. But the truth, as Polish philosopher Adam Michnyk noted, does not lie in the middle, it lies where it lies.

Operation Novorossiya is a 6 part series on Russian Propaganda Bot Blog and will be available in full as a publication in June.

Part 1  (INTRO-preface  "The Nazi Problem?")

Part 2 ( "Separation of Dignity")

Part 3 ("Thet Grey Cardinal-Art of Surkov")

Part 4 ( "Strange Bedfellows and Traitors")

Part 5 ( "Azov, The Russian Mirror")

Part 6 ( "Azov, Curious Case of The Boatsman")

Next on RPB. Operation Novorossiya part 6 of 6: The Curious Case of the Boatsman

     Out of the many Russian collaborators and questionable connections, none stood out more than the former co-founder of Azov and head of their Recon regiment from 2014-2015; Sergey "Botsman" Koroktikh. A Belarusian KGB-trained and Russian FSB deep cover agent provocateur who infiltrated Neo Nazi groups in both Belarus and Russia before being sent by the Kremlin to Ukraine. His money and access to heavy weapons were imperative in the formation of Azov. Botsman is responsible for high-profile political assassinations, murders, and kidnappings in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, has to this date, never been charged with a crime. After flipping in 2021, he is #3 on Putin's "Most Wanted" just behind Zelensky and GUR director Kyrlo Budanov. In fact, his story is so long and complicated that we saved a whole chapter just for him. With a plot line beyond Hollywood's wildest dreams, but in reality, a nightmare.

read on......

  CLICK HERE FOR PART 6

   42 Battalions were taken under the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2014 with roughly 5000 volunteers. Azov had around 700 members, roughly half were from Russia