Azov vs. Azov

 

'Criminal-style showdowns within the Azov movement are escalating.'

Two weeks ago, masked men attacked Major Andriy Korynevych, a recruitment officer from the Azov Brigade in the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), and beat him in broad daylight near his home in Ivano-Frankivsk, western Ukraine. About ten days later, he dropped a bombshell: police identified his attackers and their accomplices, all of them from the Azov movement’s 3rd Assault Brigade (AB3). Furthermore, Korynevych suggested that the assault took place on the orders of Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the Azov movement, who he said is “closely connected” to the attackers. NGU Azovites are evidently furious—their unit published a statement denouncing the alleged assailants—and many AB3 Azovites are no less enraged at their counterparts’ betrayal, for going to the police and airing their dirty laundry.

Clearly, the conflict is about much more than Korynevych, or else it probably would have stayed private. The situation apparently threatens to spiral into a sort of civil war in the Azov movement, evoking the violent feud that split the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in World War II. I think the postwar conflict within the Banderite (OUN-B) faction is more relevant, but we’ll come back to that.

As a reminder, Andriy Biletsky was the founder and first commander of the Azov Battalion/Regiment in 2014, which grew into the Azov Brigade of today under the leadership of Denys Prokopenko (since 2017). Biletsky formally left the unit, but remained its spiritual leader, and founded the National Corps and other groups that make up the broader Azov movement, which largely coalesced in the 3rd Assault Brigade under his command. As of this year, Prokopenko leads the 1st Azov Corps in the National Guard, and Biletsky heads the 3rd Army Corps, with the latter apparently still in formation. Since the full-scale Russian invasion, there have been some signs of tension between their units, but not enough to justify “pro-Ukraine” propaganda about the “depoliticization” of the NGU Azovites.

Almost exactly two years before the attack on Korynevych, I wrote about “a potential rift” in the Azov movement, which until now seemed to have aged poorly. On Biletsky’s initiative, the “Support Azov” charity was established in mid-2022, but later changed its name after the newly upgraded NGU Azov Brigade launched “The One and Only” charity “Azov One” in early 2023. As somebody said recently, “‘Support Azov’ collects millions, and the [NGU] Azov fighters see zero. Has anyone noticed where the cache is disappearing?”  (more...)

Azov vs. Azov