Azov Battalion - Ukraine

[stovebolts]

I've been trying to learn more about the "right wing, neo-nazi" Ukrainian forces called, Azov Battalion and ran across this very well written article by the Washington Post.
In it, it says,

“People who come to us already have a specific set of values,” he said, but he claimed that Azov is not neo-Nazi. “Would Nazis be fighting for the liberal democratic government in Ukraine?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/06/ukraine-military-right-wing-militias/

It gives a good history of how at one time, it was filled with neo-nazi ideology and how it has evolved.

One thing I thought was interesting is it actually touches on how they came about to be, and how the conflict in Donbas started. Apparently when Russian annexed Crimea, they also sent instigators into Donbas... So the puzzle is starting to make some sense to me.

The paramilitary unit was initially funded by wealthy Ukrainians and assisted by the nation’s then-interior minister, and the investment soon paid off. After the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Azov fighters fended off Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and kept the strategic port city of Mariupol in Ukrainian hands. “These are our best warriors,” Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, said publicly at the time.