Neo-Nazi militia for some, Ukrainian heroes for others. The Azov Battalion, entrenched in the besieged Mariupolis in the heart of a propaganda war between kyiv and Moscowwhich invokes the “denazification” of the former Soviet republic as the target of his intervention.
The pro-Russian social networks, starting with the accounts of Twitter from their embassies in Paris or London, are full of testimonies and comments on the alleged atrocities of this regiment presented as “fascist” or “Nazi”.
On March 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov justified the internationally criticized bombing of a mother and child hospital in Mariupol for the presence in the building “of the Azov Battalion and other radicals”.
Since its creation in 2014, early in the war against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukrainethis regiment later integrated into the National Guard (depending on the Ministry of the Interior) feeds all kinds of ghosts.
Founded by militants of extreme right like Andriy Belitsky, emerged from the paramilitary organization Patriots of Ukraine, recruit volunteers and hoist emblems such as the “wolfsangel” reminiscent of those of the SS Das Reich division.
“In 2014, this battalion did indeed have a far-right background. But the regiment later ‘de-ideologized’ and has become a regular unit“, explains Andreas Umland, an expert at the Center for Eastern European Studies in Stockholm. “Those who join are not going because of ideology, but because it has the reputation of being a particularly tenacious combat unit,” he says.
“Absolute Evil”
The battalion, which takes its name of the sea of Azov that bathes the port of Mariupolforged his legend in reconquering this port city from separatists backed by Russia in June 2014.
Eight years later, they meet again face to face in Mariupol, relentlessly bombed and cut off from the world, where Vladimir Putin seeks the first major victory of his “special military operation” after a rough start.
The Kremlin also takes advantage of the battalion’s presence to justify its goal of “denazification” of Ukraine, with its propaganda channels accusing the Ukrainian leadership, including the president Volodimir Zelenski, who is Jewish, from “neo-Nazis” and “drug addicts”.
This rhetoric is based on the memory of the Second World War, the Great Patriotic War as the Soviets called it, still very much anchored in contemporary Russia. “The word ‘Nazism’ or ‘fascism’ refers, in the Russian context, to the figure of absolute evil with which you cannot negotiate: you can only fight against it and try to eradicate it,” says Sergei Feiunin, from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations of Paris.
Battalion Counterattack
Russian propaganda also evokes the struggle of the Ukrainian ultranationalists against the Soviet Union after 1945 as well as their leader Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with Nazi Germany.
The Azov Battalion is not left out of this communicative war and multiplies in its telegram channel the victorious releases, accompanied by videos of armored vehicles on fire, and accuses the Russians of being “the real fascists”.
“Has become a regiment like any other“, says Viacheslav Likhachev, an expert at the ZMINA Human Rights Center in kyiv. “He just has better communication, a good image and he has no problem recruiting the best,” he says.
The unit with between 2,000 and 3,000 men According to estimates, it has kept its emblem in memory of the Mariupol victory in 2014 and sowing confusion over its past ties.
But in Ukraine, this symbol “does not have the connotation of a fascist symbol,” says Andres Umland. And for the Ukrainians, “they are heroic fighters like the others,” Likhachev deepens. Historical battalion leaders like Biletsky later joined Ukrainian political life, leading a formation of extreme right that never exceeded 2% of the vote.
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With the start of the Russian offensive, they took up arms either in their old battalion or in other units. Biletsky, very active on Telegram, is back in Mariupol. Nicholas Kravchenkofar-right ideologue, died near kyiv in a unit of volunteers for territorial defense created by veterans of Azov, explains Likhachev.
“But ultra-nationalist political forces have been in constant decline in Ukraine since 2014… It is also because moderate nationalism, fueled by Russian aggression, has become the majority,” tweeted Anna Colin Lebedev, a researcher and professor at the university. of Nanterre.