Thursday, January 2, 2025

Which Way Ukrainian Hooligan?

 

Ukraine Nation Europa neo-Nazis fascist international Azov extremism military

Nazis at a Crossroads: 'Nation Europa' or European Union

This past summer’s “Nation Europa” conference in the heart of western Ukraine tried to obscure the role of the country’s most powerful neo-Nazi movement (more or less from eastern Ukraine) in launching a new European fascist network. Azov wasn’t invited, they said. This blog’s report on that meeting was largely based on the findings of “Dreznica Goat,” a fellow researcher of the far-right in Ukraine, who called it from the beginning: Azovites didn’t need to invite themselves to their own event.

Earlier in 2024, Azov’s openly neo-Nazi brigade in the Ground Forces of Ukraine announced that a handful of its fighters were launching a summer tour of Europe. Apparently they were expecting to be treated like rock stars. This unit, the 3rd Assault Brigade, is not to be confused with Azov’s other (more famous) brigade in the National Guard, which has made an effort to refine its image for Western liberals.

Much of the tour was cancelled, a month before the “Nation Europa” event, and not long after yours truly revealed that a decorated 3rd Assault fighter visited Auschwitz to mock the Holocaust. He went there wearing a shirt from the Russian-Ukrainian neo-Nazi band “M8L8TH” with a quote attributed to Hitler on the back. Thanks to Dreznica Goat, readers of this blog already learned that the bass guitar player in M8L8TH is a medic in the 3rd Assault Brigade who represented the Nation Europa network at a roundtable of neo-Nazis on Ukraine’s Independence Day.

My article about the conference failed to identify several of the participants, most importantly Andriy Malkov, an organizer of the event, who made multiple speeches and moderated the roundtable discussion. He also appears to have served in the 3rd Assault Brigade, which is commanded by Azov leader Andriy Biletsky.  (more...)

Which Way Ukrainian Hooligan?



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