Attributed: "neo-nazi": Thakur, Ramesh (16 April 2022). "Game of empires". The Spectator Australia. Retrieved 14 April 2022. After the 2014 coup, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion – that's a Daily Beast label from 2019 – was incorporated into President Petro Poroshenko's military and security apparatus and has remained there.
"neo-nazi: "Wyborcza.pl". wyborcza.pl (in Polish). 14 April 2022. Retrieved 21 April 2022. Per The Times of Israel, " One of Poland’s most prominent journalists, Konstanty Gebert, said he is quitting what many regard as the country’s newspaper of record after it demanded that he describe Ukraine’s controversial Azov Battalion as “far-right” instead of “neo Nazi.” This is his op-ed explaining his decision.
"neo-nazi/with neo-nazi elements": Marcetic, Branko (7 April 2022). "Whitewashing Nazis Doesn't Help Ukraine". Jacobin. Retrieved 11 April 2022. the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment that was officially incorporated into Ukraine's National Guard in 2014 [...] it's hard to play down the regiment's neo-Nazi tendencies when it continues to flaunt far-right symbols and carried out a pogrom against local Roma as late as 2018. [...] In fact, he's not just involved but instrumental. In a 2019 interview with UMN (Ukrainian Media Network), the Azov Regiment's chief of staff responded to a question about why Azov was so well supplied and looked better than other parts of the National Guard: "We have a leader, Andriy Biletsky, an independent MP in the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament]. On top of being an MP, he is always visiting us at the shooting range encampment, for example. [...] Andriy, unlike others, isn't preoccupied with his own business but is always visiting, always helping us." Here's Biletsky at the Azov Regiment's fourth anniversary celebration, standing with Prokopenko in front of Azov's modified Wolfsangel, the ancient medieval rune famously adopted as a symbol by the Nazi SS. Azov insists with an implied wink that that the figure is merely a combination of the letters "N" and "I," for "the idea of the nation."
"formerly": Young, Cathy (4 April 2022). "The Bucha Atrocities and the Kremlin Apologists". The Bulwark. Retrieved 13 April 2022. While Azov has a shady history—it started out as a volunteer battalion with ties both to neo-Nazis and to Jewish billionaire and politician Ihor Kolomoyskyy—most experts believe its current incarnation is not extremist.
"neo-nazi": Miller-Idriss, Cynthia (27 March 2022). "How Russia spurred Ukraine's global neo-Nazi recruitment". MSNBC News. Retrieved 25 April 2022. Ukraine's embrace and normalization of the neo-Nazi pro-state militia Azov Battalion has created a global problem.
Attributed: "formerly": Nycz, Maciej (18 March 2022). "Facts and myths about the Azov regiment. "Making them a 'Death Star' is a big exaggeration"". RMF24 (In Polish). Retrieved 12 April 2022. I have the impression that the regiment is being blamed for the far-right actions of the Azov Movement and the National Corps party, and the links between them, this umbilical cord, have long been cut off to a large extent. This does not prevent the Russians from heating up this topic and saying that this is some great socio-political movement that has its militia in the form of this regiment. This is not the case. No one in Kiev, no politruk, no fascist, No Ukrainian nationalist or anyone is giving orders to this regiment. It is in normal command structures" - Dr. Kacper Rękawek from the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo.
"neo-nazi": Katz, Rita (14 March 2022). "Perspective Neo-Nazis are exploiting Russia's war in Ukraine for their own purposes". Washington Post. Rita Katz is the executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group and a terrorism analyst. [...] recruited by groups like the Azov Battalion, a far-right nationalist Ukrainian paramilitary and political movement. [...] It has openly welcomed Westerners into its ranks via white-supremacist sites. [...] Neo-Nazi chat groups and channels in various languages have echoed Azov's calls.
"neo-nazi": Machanick, Philip (7 March 2022). "Russia has a fascism problem and it's not Ukraine". The Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2022. More seriously, the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, formed to fight separatists, was integrated into the National Guard by former president Petro Poroshenko in 2018.
2021
"with neo-nazi elements": Colbourne, Michael (2 June 2021). "Why Designating the Azov Movement as an FTO Is Ineffective". Fair Observer. Retrieved 28 April 2022. The accurate descriptor would, of course, be the "Azov Movement." I've described the Azov Movement, which grew out of the original battalion and regiment, as a heterogenous radical-right social movement. At its core, the movement encompasses the regiment itself, the National Corps political party, the Centuria (formerly the National Militia) paramilitary organization as well as a number of affiliated subgroups and initiatives including a book club, youth camps, a "leadership school" and a (temporarily closed) three-story social center just off Kyiv's central Independence Square.
2014
"neo-nazi": Karatnycky, Adrian (2014-12-30). "Warlords and Armed Groups Threaten Ukraine's Rebuilding". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2022-04-27. Amazingly, in September he even named a leader of the neo-Nazi Azov brigade to head the police in the Kiev region.
"neo-nazi": "Look far right, and look right again". Euro Maidan Press. 11 July 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2022. The Division considers that, rather than liberating Eastern Ukraine from illiberal and undemocratic (pro-)Russia separatists, their 'black squadrons are fighting in the ranks of the pagan battalion Azov against the residues of modern society represented by khachi [racist slur for natives of the Caucasus region], chavs, communists, liberals, Asians and other Untermenschen.'
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