(Newswire.net — March 12, 2015) — Mariupol, Ukraine – USA Today visited the Azov Battalion, sponsored by Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoysky. The battalion is stationed in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. According to USA Today, an Azov Battalion sergeant has confessed he is not the only one praising the Nazi ideology.
“I know Alex is a Nazi, but it’s his personal ideology,” Andriy Diachenko, a spokesman for the Azov Brigade, told USA Today. He added about 10% to 20% of the group’s members are Nazis.
A drill sergeant who identified himself as Alex told the newspaper that he supports Nazi-style strong leadership for Ukraine but does not share the Nazis’ genocide agenda against Jews, as long as minorities “don’t demand special privileges.”
Azov’s group was heavily sponsored by Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoysky, and according to the USA Today, Alex insisted that once the war is over, he and others from the Azov Battalion will go back to Kiev to deal with the corrupt government and nationalize the property of the wealthy oligarchs.
Other higher ranked officers of in the battalion disputed that Alexs’ claim group would confront the regime in Kiev, however, they confirmed a number of neo-Nazis among servicemen.
“I know Alex is a Nazi, but it’s his personal ideology. It has nothing to do with the official ideology of the Azov,” said Andrey Dyachenko, a spokesman for the Azov Battalion. “He’s a good drill sergeant and a good instructor for tactics and weapons skills,” he said.
The brigade’s deputy commander, Oleg Odnorozhenko, however, said, “Ideas like going to Kiev to change the government in an illegal way should be nipped in the bud.”
“He [Alex] has no right to make statements in a way they can be construed as the position of the regiment. He will be dealt with severely for his lack of discipline,” said Odnorozhenko
The lack of discipline allegedly follows Azov’s battalion as reports of bothered civilians started to pile up. According to USA Today report of alleged abuse, shop owner Svetlana Gudina, 51, said Azov troops detained her two sons, ages 28 and 32, and seized their cars, cash, flash drives and documents while searching for separatists last September. The men were released, and she managed to recover the cars and money.
“If they have come to defend us, let them defend, but when they come to molest and humiliate civilians, it’s wrong,” Gudina said adding that the experience destroyed her trust in Ukrainian authorities, USA today reported.
NATO countries and Russian Federation are strongly denying any sponsorship in this war, however, the presence of various volunteers, mercenaries from western countries and volunteers from the ‘Red Army’ brought up unfinished business dated from the ‘cold war’ era started after the Second World War.
In addition, the radical ‘Ustasha’ volunteers – WWII Nazi Germany allays, now fighting for Kiev – fights the ‘Chetniks’ WWII radical nationalists volunteers from Serbia who team up with rebels, continuing the Serbo-Croatian civil war that destroyed Yugoslavia.
Both countries officially strongly condemned their countryman’s business in Ukraine, promising them arrest upon their return.
Interesting though, the ‘Chetniks’ were on the same side with ‘Ustasha’ by the end of the WWII fighting beside Germans against Russians and other communists.
Ukraine, Russia and the Kremlin-backed separatists signed the cease-fire deal in Minsk, the Belarusian capital. Urged by German Chancelor Merkel and the French PM Hollande, along with Russian president Putin, the cease-fire deal however fragile it seems, appears to be holding for now. That is why EU members strongly oppose US president Obama’s idea to send military equipment and weapons to Kiev, fearing it would spark its use and blood shade will continue.
Given that the vast majority of volunteers fighting in Ukraine consider the extermination of the enemy not only their moral right, but their business as well, if the war ends, lots of warbirds will lose their businesses.
That is why no one was really surprised when Alex told the USA Today that he and others from the Azov’s Battalion plan to go back to Kiev on a different mission.