This year, the UK’s Daily Mail published combat footage from “Ukraine’s elite Molot group,” with just a faint watermark. If the emblem was more visible, viewers might have wondered about the significance of the Mjölnir (Thor’s Hammer, or Molot Tora), the “death rune” centered on it, and the pair of lightning bolts in the background. An older emblem of the Molot Group is less subtle, with Thor’s Hammer superimposed over a Black Sun, a Nazi symbol that originated in Hitler’s Germany. A couple months after the Daily Mail feature, the group’s Telegram channel marked half a decade since the death of a 20-year-old nationalist, “Smurf.” It shared an image of him, apparently smiling at the dawn of a neo-Nazi era.
The Molot Group, a little known unit in the famous 3rd Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, is associated with the Hitlerite “Nord Storm” (NS, a double entendre, also refers to National Socialism), another group affiliated with Ukraine’s most powerful neo-Nazis. The Azov movement created the 3rd Assault Brigade but originated in the notorious “Azov Battalion,” which joined the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) and became the “Azov Regiment” by 2015 — and the “Azov Brigade” by 2023.
Whereas the NGU Azov Brigade has made an effort to clean up its image, if only to substantiate propaganda about its “evolution” and “depoliticization,” the 3rd Assault Brigade, established in 2022 by NGU Azov veterans, is more open about its Nazism. Many of its units use the Black Sun, and at least a couple use Slavic pagan symbols. Many if not most Ukrainian neo-pagans are possessed with the conviction that their country is actually the ancient Aryan homeland and birthplace of “white civilization.” They appropriated the Black Sun years ago, giving neo-Nazis the excuse that it’s just a pagan symbol, as far as they know. (more...)
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