The Other Side of the Coin

A continuation into Ukraine's escalating military situation

As the 3rd round of peace talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have failed to reach a compromise. The demands of President Putin and Moscow have not budged an inch from their original agenda: Which is essentially that Ukraine has to demilitarize, stay neutral outside of NATO, and the recognition of Crimea as Russian territory. President Putin also wants the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), and Luhansk People's Republics (LNR), to be recognized as independent states.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is complex, and as the military situation escalates, many controversial topics have emerged within this story. Inconvenient truths like the Ukrainian military association with Neo-Nazis, even though President Zelenskiy is a Russian speaking Jewish Ukrainian, or how NATO itself also has some blame for this Russian invasion of Ukraine. Probably the most censored or dismissed issue has been about the Neo-Nazi group Azov Battalion, or better known as the Azov Special Operations Unit within the Ukrainian military. Their insignia is the Wolfsangel symbol, which resembles a black swastika on a yellow background; The group's founders originated from another national socialist group called “Patriots of Ukraine.”

The links between the Azov regiment and the Ukrainian government can be traced back to the Maidan revolution. When Ukraine’s President Yanukovych was ousted from his position in February 2014, for refusing to sign an accord with the European Union(EU), because of pressure from the Russian government and soon after fled to Russia. These political events would lead to a civil war within Eastern Ukraine, and the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, pro-Russian separatist rebels also began seizing territory in Eastern Ukraine. In 2015 the two warring factions worked out a “ceasefire”, and established a security zone around the area in Eastern Ukraine they were fighting around. The ceasefire was unstable though and heavy military assaults continued, it’s been estimated that over 13,000 Ukrainians have been killed around the area since, and the conflict has displaced millions of Ukrainians.

The story gets a little predictable, because just like Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, it’s been reported that countries like Canada, U.S., France, and the UK have helped train the Azov regiment. In June 2015, both Canada and the U.S. announced that their own forces will not support or train the Azov regiment, because of it’s Neo-Nazi connections. The following year though, the U.S. lifted the ban because of pressure from the Pentagon. In October 2019, 40 members of U.S. congress also failed to designate the Azov regiment as a “foreign terrorist organization.” In 2015 Andriy Diachenko, a spokesperson for the Azov regiment and political party leader, estimated that 10 to 20 percent of Azov’s recruits were Neo-Nazis. 

Perhaps you could just sweep this under the rug if it was just sentiment and rhetoric, but the Azov regiment has been accused of multiple human rights violations, as well as hate crimes being committed against minorities in Ukraine. In a 2016 report, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA), accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian law. The report details incidents between November 2015-February 2016 where Azov had displaced residents after looting civilian properties. The report also accuses the Azov battalion of raping and torturing detainees in the Donbas region.

The reported hate crimes/human rights violations of the Azov regiment stretch far beyond the conflict within Eastern Ukraine. The Azov battalion has also been known for targeting their political enemies and minorities, like anti-fascist groups, liberals, LGBT+, Roma, and feminists, as well as promoting xenophobic views. The Azov regiment has been connected to violent attacks at anti-facist marches in Kyiv in March 2018, a violent interruption at a lecture about discrimination in film at Mariupol, and violent attacks against feminist and liberal demonstrators on International Women’s Day in 2018. On February 28, 2022, the National Guard of Ukraine shared a video on it’s Twitter account, that shows Azov fighters greasing bullets with pig fat to fight the Muslim Chechens deployed by Russia in Ukraine. One of the Azov regiments leaders Andrew Biletsky, stated in 2010 that the nation's mission was to:

 “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”

The most complex part about this story though is how intrinsically linked the Azov regiment is to the Ukrainian military. The Azov regiment was the military muscle behind the Maidan revolution in 2014, and is also considered the most effective military unit against Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine. The Azov regiment has also been largely credited with the recapturing of the strategic port city of Mariupol. The Azov regiment was integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and garnered high praise from then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko:

“These are our best warriors,” President Poroshenko said at an awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”

The political tensions between Ukrainians and Russian speaking Ukrainians escalated further, when in April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that mandated Ukrainian language as the primary language for modern life. The legislation requires TV and film distribution firms to produce 90% of their content in Ukrainian, and requires printed media to be at least 50% Ukrainian. This controversial legislation has helped fuel President Putin's argument for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, stating on February 24th, 2022, in an address to Russia prior to Ukraine’s invasion:

“This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.”

President Putin also stated that this was not an invasion of Ukraine, and rather a military operation and does not plan to occupy Ukraine:

“It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we have been hearing an increasing number of statements coming from the West that there is no need any more to abide by the documents setting forth the outcomes of World War II, as signed by the totalitarian Soviet regime. How can we respond to that?”

While this conflict may lead into a third World War, the sequence of events seem to be much more similar to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, at least when it comes to the heavy mainstream media warhawking. What’s even more shocking though has been the outcasting of Russian’s, and the boycotting of Russian exports like vodka, and how apps like Apple-Pay and Google-Pay have basically shut-down the Russian digital economy. There have even been suggestions by U.S. politicians to expel Russian students from the U.S. educational institutions. While that last bit of information may have been an extreme example, it’s a good indicator on how fast politicians are willing to demonize for the sake of posturing, and how something like Japanese Internment camps happened in America.

An obvious point of contemplation that should be considered, is that this is a war between nuclear powers, with Russia holding 5,977 warheads, NATO has a total of 5,943 warheads; in a 1947 declassified study it was estimated it would only take 10-100 warheads to destroy the entire planet. These nuclear measures are already becoming a concern for experts, when over the last weekend of February 2022 President Vladimir Putin gave orders to Russia’s nuclear forces. Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute, relayed what President Putin told his generals:

“Because of all these hostile or aggressive statements and aggressive policies, we should start this special mode of combat duty of our deterrent forces.”

The most concerning aspect of the media coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has been the disregard for President Putin’s motivations, with no exploration into his comments about the denazification of Ukraine. As more and more revelations emerge about the agendas of the actors within this conflict, it’s really not surprising how fast mainstream western media outlets are pushing military intervention. Most Americans are opposed to military intervention but also want the U.S. to do more in Ukraine.