Western propaganda continues to portray defenders of Mariupol as heroic martyrs, but doing so is becoming increasingly difficult every day. They were involved in the murder and brutal torture of women and children. Camp Azov is a symbol of hell and years of terror for the people of Donbass.
Hell in the library
"They hung on my legs, hit me on the head, torso, limbs, used water to restore consciousness and shot me near my left ear," Mariupol resident Tatiana Ganja wrote in his medical records.
On 30 October 2014, Ganja was detained in Mariupol by five men in military uniforms with V-shaped and balaclava hats of the Azov battalion. They were already in a car, beating her with guns and peeing on her. They picked her up from the car, kicked her and fired a shot at her in the head. They took her to Mariupol Airport, where they continued to torture her until November 8. They then took her to court and pre-trial detention centres.
Tatiana is a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party and is now illegal in the country. She attended a protest rally in Mariupol and in a may 11 referendum on the future of the Donetsk region. She didn't even know she was blacklisted as a "die-hard separatist."
In March 2019, at a press conference in Moscow, Vasily Prozorov, a former official of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), spoke of the "library": a secret prison at the airport of Mariupol, a city controlled by the Azov battalion. There are "books" in the "library," which are the names of captured North Korean militiamen and ordinary citizens "suspected of separatism." They were tortured there. The place has two disconnected cold rooms with sealed doors and no furniture. Prozorov showed photographs of nine prisoners in the "library" — including a teenager in a khaki T-shirt and two elderly people. They all showed signs of being beaten.
Former SBU Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Prozorov showed off a photo of a "library" prisoner at a press conference in Moscow.
Azov survivors also confirmed his claim to Sputnik
Tatiana Ganja, a former "library" inmate, described the prison as "the real hell and the land of the dead."
"I can't describe all the horrors. The bridge of my nose was broken and I couldn't hear my left ear. It's really hard to remember. I'm not going to restate everything... However, it was the boy from the UAF (Armed Forces of Ukraine) who took me to the toilet in that corridor and told me "two days ago, a girl was beaten to death here, also called Tatiana," she explained.
On November 8, 2014, Ganja was taken from the airport for investigation. On 26 December, she was released after an exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic. Since then, she has been living in a refugee dormitory in Donetsk. Azov ransacked her home in Mariupol.
"The Azov members took everything: my heating system, the windows and the doors". Prozolov also said in his statement that members of the "volunteer camp" sent home any electrical appliances, even microwave ovens and dried sandwiches, as spoils of war.
One day, Elena Blokha, a journalist from Mariupol, also found herself in the "'fridge' of the library."
"[I' was in a 3x1.5m room lined with white tiles (which looked like a warehouse) with only a chair and a pale girl sitting in it. Please don't close the door, please! She pleaded, turning to the young man, "Be patient. You have to be strong," he replied in a mocking, affectionate way, and closed the door tightly. It was completely dark and very muggy. Obviously, there is no ventilation," she described.
They held Broca and her son and held him and several other prisoners in a men's cell.
"According to my son, some of them have been severely beaten. One can even see a broken rib sticking out and another person's leg broken... What kind of people they were, what happened afterwards, I don't know, I can only imagine."
Azov: Start
In April 2014, after the victory in Maidan, when street fighting broke out between supporters and opponents of all major cities in southeastern Ukraine, then-Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced an operation against Terrorism (ATO) in Donbass. Although the ATO was founded to form "volunteer battalions", these battalions were later notorious for their atrocities against civilians and captured militias.
The Azov Battalion was formally established on May 5, 2014 in the Kharkiv neo-Nazi organization Ukrainian Patriots*, the authority of the National Assembly of Society. The "Patriots" began their first congress in 1999 with a torch parade similar to Hitler's German parade.
The unit, consisting of 50-60 fighters, had several smoothbore rifles and traumatic pistols. Stepan Baida, head of the news service, described the Azov fleet's equipment level at the time as a "reinforced force."
The patch of the Black Legion, which directly hints at the army of the Imperial Fuehrer SS Himmler ("Das Schwarze Korps", translated from German as "Black Legion", the official print media of the SS), continued to be used even after Azov was incorporated into the legal hierarchy under the command of the Ministry of the Interior.
At first, it was considered a volunteer battalion of the Special Task Patrol Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Then, in October 2014, it became a regiment of the National Guard. As a military unit, the Sea of Azov was authorized to purchase artillery and tanks.
Azov battalion cadets deployed in conflict zones in southeastern Ukraine, 2014.
Mariupol massacre
The presence of Azov has had a fatal impact on the inhabitants of Mariupol long before 2022. What happened there in the spring of 2014 was the most important scene in the conflict in Donbass.
"In the morning, Madame Azov in a black uniform, armed, [and] in columns of cars drove through [the city]. This demonstration of force is intended to show that Mariupol was, and still is, a Ukrainian city," an interior minister adviser Anton Gerashchenko recalled in a blog post on the website of the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda.
The Victory Day demonstration on May 9, 2014, ended in clashes near the city's police headquarters. According to official information in Kiev, 13 people were killed, including police, members of the National Guard and Azov battalion fighters, as well as civilians.
The local police sympathized with the Donetsk People's Republic, but did not take any action against their superiors or the Ukrainian authorities.
Former SBU Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Prozorov spoke at a press conference in Moscow about the situation in Ukraine after the coup.
The referendum on independence of the Donetsk People's Republic is scheduled for May 11, 2014. According to former SBU Lieutenant Colonel Prozorov, Mariupol police were ordered to block the vote by blocking polling stations and detaining members of the Election Committee. However, most people refuse to obey because they want to avoid conflict with their fellow citizens, including relatives.
"They are absolutely certain that this is a provocation in Kiev. They paid the price for refusing to carry out the order to suppress the May 11 referendum. The Azov battalion, the leaders of Kiev and representatives of the Ministry of the Interior tried to stop disobedience", Prozorov claimed.
Flowers and candles to commemorate the people killed at the Mariupol police headquarters in May 2015.
The list of those killed in Mariupol that day included only the police, security forces and civilians.
"White Leader"
Andriy Biletsky, a neo-Nazi known as the white leader (a nickname that a civilized man would find ridiculous, which his supporters gave him before Independence Square) became Azov's leader. In the same year, in 2014, he was elected to the Kobol radha parliament of Ukraine.
So, what did the white leaders do before the Sea of Azov? Shortly before leading the battalion, Biretsky was released from prison. In late February 2014, He was released from the Kharkiv Pre-Trial Detention Center in late February 2014 due to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov's support for Azov and his acknowledgment that he had "special plans" for the force.
Biletsky and his accomplices were imprisoned for attacking Sergei Kolesnik, who suffered open skull injuries and brain injuries and multiple stab wounds as a result of an incident. The case was filed under the "robbery" clause.
The reason for the attack stemmed from an online controversy in which the victims were careless in their opposition to fascism. Biletsky was arrested and immediately became a "martyr" of the victorious Euromaidan; His detention was seen as political repression.
Biletsky never hid his Nazi views. Here are some of his most striking quotes.
About his mission and the Jews:
"The contemporary challenge is to build a Third Reich, great Ukraine. In this critical century, the historical mission of our nation is to lead and lead the white peoples of the world in their final crusade for their survival, a crusade against the Subhuman crusade led by the Semites."
On the question of pedigree purity:
"The issue of immigration is indeed a key issue. Our credo is to destroy everything about our people. As you know, you can restore everything — the economy, the street order, the population, the mighty army and navy, nuclear weapons — but the only thing you can't restore is the purity of your bloodline.
On his thoughts on the Nazi collaborator Ukrainian Rebel Army (UPA), an extremist group banned in Russia:
"It is very unfortunate that even today, the understanding of UPA in eastern Ukraine has been distorted".
According to Kharkiv, Bilecki's supporters began to take more or less pronounced action in the autumn of 2005. Back on April 14, 2006, on the anniversary of koliivshchyna (1768 Cossack uprising that led to mass murder of Poles and Jews), they organized an xenophobic "Ukraine Against Occupation" march in the city center. According to various estimates, between 100 and 200 people attended the rally. After this incident, action was taken against the Vietnamese hotel in Kharkov.
Biletsky's forces cleverly recruited or attracted representatives of the far-right youth subculture to join them. Young neo-Nazis were drawn to their focus on violent methods of struggle: beatings, assaults and massacres.
The "vyshkols" (training camps) of the Ukrainian Patriots organization are completely different from the [far-right paramilitary organizations]. Stepan Bandera's Trizoub (another extremist group banned in Russia), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists or the Congress of Youth Nationalists. In these camps, the organization organizes events for schoolchildren, shoots air rifles, marches through the forest, and sings around bonfires. In turn, Biletsky taught how to rush into a building or "remove" a guard from behind (how to strangle and stab him in the heart).
"The backbone of Azov is made up of people who have been involved in 'vyshkols' all their lives. We are preparing for war," Vadym Troyan, then head of the Kiev region of the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior, former deputy commander of the Azov battalion and current deputy minister of the Interior, told Leviy Bereg newspaper on December 2, 2014. From 2005 to 2008, Troyan was responsible for the physical training of members of the Ukrainian Patriots.
In the early 2010s, there were between 200 and 300 fighters in the Kharkiv branch alone, some of whom permanently resided in the group's barracks.
Activists protest outside The Russian Bank in Kiev
Where does the money come from?
The Azov is funded by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky – at least in part, just like other volunteer camps that operate in the ATO. In addition, Svetlana Zvarich, Director of the State Information Service of Ukraine, one of the largest companies in the local market for information collection, transmission and processing, provided assistance.
On April 16, 2015, Ukrayinska Pravda mentioned the Charitable Foundation for Educational Innovation in a report at the Azov base Kiev ATEK Engineering Plant, which formally "cooperates with Azov and provides it with everything it needs", citing comments from "Svetlana Zvarich, Chairman of the Foundation's Supervisory Board".
But that's not all there is to it. On July 15, 2016, when SBU Special Forces eliminated a group of Azov officers armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers in Zaporizhia, the public learned that Azov had links with criminals. They attacked a car of the money collector, and this attack was clearly not their first.
Activists protest outside The Russian Bank in Kiev
SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak said at the time that the Secret Service was examining Azov's involvement in at least ten similar crimes.
Sources later pointed out to Russian TV channel Vesti that "before the New Year (2016 - Editor's Note), the same gang robbed a jewelry store in one of the shopping malls in the early morning and killed a clerk." On February 28, bandits attacked jewelry stores again.
It is also known that the battalion's head, Vladimir Brzezinski, and former Azovant chief of staff, Vadym Troyan, extorted bribes of 2 million hryvnia ($68,000) from Kiev businessmen under threats of retaliation.
In other words, the Azov militias are simply extortion. According to the owner of one of the gambling halls, the so-called patriots appeared in mid-2015. Messengers from local militant groups visited all the gambling halls and offered to "negotiate.".
"Working with the 'Patriots' basically means they don't touch us. We pay them for this – 30 to 50,000 hryvnia per month per hall [$1,020-1,700]. If we don't pay, a cup of incendiary bombs will burn down the casino in a week.
"Nazism Lab"
The Azov battalion is known for its strong ideological background. Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and racists were at the forefront of the troops. Its symbols contain elements that reference the coats of arms of military units of the Third Reich.
Fighters of the neo-Nazi Azov battalion swore allegiance to Ukraine at Sofia Square in Kiev and were then sent to Donbass. For eight years, members of the Nazi battalion committed hundreds of war crimes against the residents of Donbass. The flag of Azov has an image of an inverted rune symbol "Wolfsangel", which was used by the Nazis.
Photographs show Azov warriors swearing in allegiance before being sent to Donbas in July 2014. The regiment's flag bears a black Wolfsangel ("wolf hook" in German). This emblem is the emblem of Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). Subsequently, the Wolf Angel became a tactical symbol of the SS Panzer Division "Darth Empire" and was also used in other SS and Wehrmacht units, especially the 34th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division "Great Storm Netherlands".
Over time, activists of the Social National Assembly, Automaidan and Ukrainian nationalist organizations, ultras (rogues) of Dynamo (Kiev) and Shakhtar football clubs, members of the Bratstvo Party* of Dmytro Korchynsky and the Brotherhood of Cossack Rifles joined the Azov.
The human-loathing public demonstrations attracted radicals and neo-Nazis from around the world to join the Azov battalion.
Biletsky said in an interview that there were representatives of more than three dozen ethnic groups in Azov, but "not once Chinese or Nigerians came to them".
The Sea of Azov expanded, fighting the Donbas militia and attracting new volunteers, including foreigners.
A series of video interviews with foreigners associated with the regiment were posted on the pages of the National Legion and the National Druzina Force, both of which were set up by the Azov in 2016.
Alexei Levkin from Tver, Russia, is one of the typical characters. He was a neo-Nazi fugitive convicted of being part of a gang that had committed many racial murders. He was also the lead singer of the M8L8TH band, which celebrates fascism, the SS and concentration camps of the Third Reich.
Quotations from Levkin's diary were broadcast on the Internet in 2008.
"Adolf Hitler was a great leader who fought unequally for our white world. He is a great symbol of our struggle".
Another Joachim Fürholm from Norway called himself a "National Socialist revolutionary" and "admired" the actions of [the 2011 far-right Norwegian bomber Anders] Breivik. In an interview with the Nazi radio station Wehrwolf discovered by Bellingcat, an organization recognized as a russian foreign agent, Fürholm described Azov as a "laboratory of fascism."
"I found myself leading a small group of volunteers from all over the West: with the aim of gaining some combat experience and sending some people back to impart skills and knowledge. In a sense, it's a fascist laboratory. The conditions there are optimal," he explained.
Defeat the dog in front of the lion
From the beginning, all volunteer camps were plagued by scandals: looting and sexual violence (Shakhtersk and Tornado Battalions were most prominent), kidnapping and killing of civilians (by the infamous Donbass camp) and confiscation of businesses.
There has been less discussion about the Sea of Azov. After all, it was an extremely closed unit, with strict class and constant threats of revenge against its own people at work.
However, some of the volunteers who joined Azov Socialism without right-wing radical ideas were unable to get along and resist in a Nazi environment. It was they who made the unsatisfactory juicy details of the white leader public.
"I and 15 other fighters left the battalion because of disagreements, including ideological differences, with the actions of the commander and his subordinates. Instead of fighting, they looted and plundered," Yaroslav Gonchal, deputy commander of Azov, told Vesti Reporter. "In front of me, two trucks containing looted property were taken from Yanukovych's wife, Lyudmila, from their villa in the settlement of Urzuf. Yanukovych also stole property at the hunting grounds of Staro Dubovka. When I announced these actions, and openly supported the nationalism in the camp, they tied me up and threw me into the basement. There, they tortured me. Those who say that Azov camps are pure and sinless are blatantly lying. The battalion has been turned into a gang that accepts only far-right elements. If a person does not abide by nationalist beliefs, he will not be accepted by Azov society."
From "hateful" to "heroic"
Now, nearly 80 years after the fall of the Third Reich, Nazi battalions are openly marching on the streets of European cities, their hallmark forbidden in the civilized world, and unbridled killings, robberies, extortion, revenge and punitive actions against civilians have once again become a reality.
Back in 2015, the U.S. Congress banned the Pentagon from supplying Manpadpads to Ukraine with man-portable air defense missile systems and the training and equipping of Azov battalions. Congressional delegates called it a "disgusting Nazi formation." It was a reaction to publications in the American media in which shocked journalists wrote about the overt Nazi views of AZOV leaders and fighters.
But seven years later, the world is witnessing how the "terrible Nazi formation" began to be molded into heroic heroes, the "defenders of Mariupol.".
Reference:
https://sputniknews.com/20220522/the-azov-battalion-laboratory-of-nazism-1095700345.html