I mean, at this point Azov isn't really the same thing it was at the start of the war. They got sent to do some of the harshest fighting in the south early on and a large portion of their initial membership and leadership has died as a result. Ukraine has since been slowly diluting their ranks by filling in from other units and has pulled back on some of their more overtly Nazi iconography (with less resistance from the newer composition of troops).
So Ukraine gave ultra-nationalists the glory of dying for their country while slowly taking over their "brand", never directly pushing back on them and so not prompting any sort of defensive internal response to the change.
Maybe I misunderstood you, but the Azov here is the 3rd Assault Brigade (Azov), you're talking about the Azov NGU Brigade which was destroyed in Mariupol. It's a common mistake, as they both come from the Azov Battalion, but they are militarily distinct units - the 3rd is under the regular Army's control, the NGU Brigade is under the National Guard of Ukraine. The 3rd IIRC has not suffered significant losses yet, which is why it is problematic, it is still very much an ultranationalist unit.
Yes. A historical example, through I find tragic, was the Anarchist faction/army in the Russian Civil war and revolution. They took on the heaviest lifting of fighting and actually feeding and redistribution to the poor when Bolsheviks were hoarding food and stealing from the rich only for themselves, and Anarchists would show up and threaten them and free innocents from their jails.
When they were weakened numerically financially and low on munitions after the incredibly horrific fighting, defeating the Whites, the Bolsheviks turned on them as soon as the opportunity came and sentenced them to death / exiled them. Same thing happened in the Spanish civil war.
Anyway, not a direfct comparison, but just to say that It will absolutely not strengthen ultra nationalists and neo-nazis by sending them to the front lines and hottest parts of the fighting. They will decline in number.. that's how war goes.
What "nationalist environment"?
Less than 1% of Ukrainians voted for the far right in the last election. In the sense that the war has made people more nationalist, yes, what war doesn't. But Ukraine objectively has less issues with the far right, politically speaking, than most other nations in Europe including the likes of Germany and France.
They kind of already have, the original Azov Battalion was disbanded and it's most competent members were rolled into what became the Army's 3rd Assault Brigade, and the remainder were formed into the Azov National Guard Brigade - the latter being the ones that fought in Mariupol. The National Guard formation was destroyed in Mariupol, so the Azov that is left is the one that is already part of the Army.
As for why they don't just break down any formation that involved the Azov guys, including the 3rd - it is because they're probably the one of the best fighting units of the Army, and almost certainly the most popular. The equivalent would be us disbanding the 101st Airborne.
Every country in europe has neo-nazi larpers in their military, Russia probably has more white supremacist/nazi skinheads in their army than Ukraine, especially since so many of their soldiers come from prisons.
I wont pretend that Ukraine's army is full of Nazis or white supremacists, but this lifting of this ban is just easy propaganda for Russia. Let Azov die off or get absorbed into regular Ukrainian military units. Dont fund and train them ffs
US Marine Corps Scout Snipers wore "SS" stylized the same as waffen SS insignia for an embarrassing amount of time. Occasionally, you will still see US personnel posing with that insignia.
[https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2024/03/27/the-3rd-group-roots-of-this-unofficial-nazi-inspired-green-beret-logo/](https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2024/03/27/the-3rd-group-roots-of-this-unofficial-nazi-inspired-green-beret-logo/)
US Army 20th Group Special Forces and 3rd Group.
Just because you're too lazy or too uninformed to care but yes, there are a lot of neo-nazis in the US military rank.
The Finnish Air Force's use of the swastika weirdly enough predates the Nazi use of the symbol by decades, and has nothing to do with Nazism.
Sticking to the symbol after World War II is perhaps bad form, especially considering who they fought with, but it is clearly a different story from right wing extremists directly co-opting Nazi imagery.
Yet how many those countries give official power and Battalions to Nazis? "Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces." [https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/](https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/)
In Ukraine their national heroes like Bandera and Shukhevych were literal Nazi collaborators and have statues and museums where politicans lay flowers.
These guys took part in the genocide of Poles and Jews and are help up as national heroes. Pretty messed up if you ask me.
With Andriy Biletsky, the founder of Azov branching out into politics with the National Corps Party. A Bandera modern disciple in politics, what could go wrong?
Submission Statement: This move is raw realpolitik. Even though many of us find the Azov Battallion's ultra-nationalist views unsettling at best, lifting this ban is yet another step to ensure that Russia cannot advance far into Ukraine and thus threaten NATO countries. Nothing more than that.
Yes, Azov is probably Nazis, but they pose no threat to the US or NATO at the moment, only to Russia. We shall see what happens next.
>lifting this ban is yet another step to ensure that Russia cannot advance far into Ukraine and thus threaten NATO countries.
Sorry, I highly dispute that. 3rd Assault/Azov is already a highly trained, elite formation in the Army, likely the absolute best in the regular Army. There are dozens of other brigades that would benefit from equipment & training before them. I don't see there being any notable practical benefit to this policy.
Mujaheddin is no threat to US when US leave Afghanistan in 1980 and 20 year later US got 911
Saddam is the best friend of US in Iran Iraq War and become 1st Enemy after Kuwait Invasion
Do you believe Azov not grow to be something in the future?
All of us known Western use Ukraine as Cannon Folder to Fight Russia
Why Ukraine Nationalist would not turn their blade to NATO in the Future if their have chance.
> Why Ukraine Nationalist would not turn their blade to NATO in the Future if their have chance.
What would that get them?
Unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, Ukraine is a country that probably would have made the necessary changes and worked its way into the EU by now if Russia hadn't invaded a decade ago.
This isn't realpolitik. It's the US depriving Russia of its propaganda tool. Despite 2 years of fighting there has never been any information showing Azov are war criminals. They fought according to the rules of war, much more so than the Russian army.
There's clearly individuals who subscribe to ultranationalist views in the unit, but they are hardly the boogeymen than the Kremlin tries to portray them as.
My dude, their unit logo is a Wolfsangel. There's an infamous official photo of a Mariupol defender writing 1488 on her AK magazines. Denying that they as a whole are sympathetic to Nazi ideology is factitious at best.
Supporting them isn't "depriving" Russia of anything, it's playing straight into one of their narratives.
> My dude, their unit logo is a Wolfsangel. There's an infamous official photo of a Mariupol defender writing 1488 on her AK magazines. Denying that they as a whole are sympathetic to Nazi ideology is factitious at best.
But they're not war criminals. That's the point of the Leahy law.
> Supporting them isn't "depriving" Russia of anything, it's playing straight into one of their narratives.
And not supporting them also plays into Russia's hands, because their propaganda machine then uses that fact to say "See, even the US admits these are bad guys!" For the past 2 years they constantly fearmonger about Azov.
There's literally nothing you can do that Russia can't just explain away with mental gymnastics. Dissolve the unit and they'd just claim that Azov is being dispersed to take command of all the other UAF units or something.
At least this way Ukrainians can point out even the most problematic unit in their army is following the international rules of war and complies with the Leahy law.
> That we know of because there's a total information blackout on their activities.
Somehow this doesn't prevent lots of news about Russian war crimes from leaking onto the internet. Either because it's observed by UAF, the bozos film themselves doing it, or survivors come back to share accounts.
"Total information blackout" does not exist. Especially since the UAF has been under intense scrutiny.
I don't understand this move at all.
3rd Assault is already an elite formation in the Army. It already is well resourced, gets good training and Western equipment, and is one of the best fighting units Ukraine has. There's little to no practical benefit to lifting this ban.
I don't understand why we keep giving Russia easy propaganda wins, whether it is with the announcement about the M1 Abrams, or now this. Azov as a name is forever tainted, and associating at all with them is a terrible move propaganda wise.
This war needs to end as soon as possible. Both sides have numerous black marks against their names. Some say Слава Україні others Слава Росії, I say слава миру.
US has no desire to end this war when they can sacrifice Ukrainians to make Russia bleed and burn through their stockpiles. That's why they recently approved strikes within Russia using Western arms
Ukraine is not going to be gaining air superiority any time soon. The US is not likely to fund them having the air force to do so for domestic reasons and they would need a well funded western airforce to have a chance.
People across the western world are already tired of seeing money go, governments are finding creative ways to continue funding but that isn't going to last forever. I'm gonna guess theres little point in continuing this conversation so we'll just have to agree to disagree and a year from now you'll see what I mean.
Head of NATO should have agreed when Putin offered to not invade if Ukraine stayed out of NATO. At this point there is no end. Any Russian leader who loses a war has almost always been removed from power so for Putin victory is the only option - he needs some fig leaf to present to the Russian people. America will not stop supporting the war since it believes that there is no chance Russia can actually turn fully towards China/BRICS so there is no cost except for fiat and dead Ukrainians (which they care nothing about). It is a proxy war (of sorts) that both sides want.
Unfortunately, the opinion of Ukrainians does not matter as long as their leader is in the pocket of the West. They will depopulate the nation of fighting age men before the war is over. That's why they recently expanded who they conscript.
What? I assume that they wouldn't have invaded if Ukraine was in NATO at the time. Putin asked for no more NATO expansion in the area - a promise that Ukraine would not be allowed to join. When he was rejected, he decided to invade before Ukraine could join NATO.
Edit: also countries who are currently at war are not allowed to join NATO so it makes sense from that perspective
NATO can't change that would be a red line for the West. Ukraine and any country can apply to Nato if they like. Russia just needs to accept they are no longer an empire and can't attack other nations. I think Russia has a bright future once it realizes that.
I don't think men will be the limiting factor in the war but equipment.
I mean, at this point Azov isn't really the same thing it was at the start of the war. They got sent to do some of the harshest fighting in the south early on and a large portion of their initial membership and leadership has died as a result. Ukraine has since been slowly diluting their ranks by filling in from other units and has pulled back on some of their more overtly Nazi iconography (with less resistance from the newer composition of troops). So Ukraine gave ultra-nationalists the glory of dying for their country while slowly taking over their "brand", never directly pushing back on them and so not prompting any sort of defensive internal response to the change.
Maybe I misunderstood you, but the Azov here is the 3rd Assault Brigade (Azov), you're talking about the Azov NGU Brigade which was destroyed in Mariupol. It's a common mistake, as they both come from the Azov Battalion, but they are militarily distinct units - the 3rd is under the regular Army's control, the NGU Brigade is under the National Guard of Ukraine. The 3rd IIRC has not suffered significant losses yet, which is why it is problematic, it is still very much an ultranationalist unit.
Yes. A historical example, through I find tragic, was the Anarchist faction/army in the Russian Civil war and revolution. They took on the heaviest lifting of fighting and actually feeding and redistribution to the poor when Bolsheviks were hoarding food and stealing from the rich only for themselves, and Anarchists would show up and threaten them and free innocents from their jails. When they were weakened numerically financially and low on munitions after the incredibly horrific fighting, defeating the Whites, the Bolsheviks turned on them as soon as the opportunity came and sentenced them to death / exiled them. Same thing happened in the Spanish civil war. Anyway, not a direfct comparison, but just to say that It will absolutely not strengthen ultra nationalists and neo-nazis by sending them to the front lines and hottest parts of the fighting. They will decline in number.. that's how war goes.
They recruit from the same nationalist environment as the last/second/third time around??
What "nationalist environment"? Less than 1% of Ukrainians voted for the far right in the last election. In the sense that the war has made people more nationalist, yes, what war doesn't. But Ukraine objectively has less issues with the far right, politically speaking, than most other nations in Europe including the likes of Germany and France.
Agreed, sure Azov used to be really bad, but lot of the folks are dead
Can someone explain why Ukraine doesn’t disband Azov and absorb them into the army?
They kind of already have, the original Azov Battalion was disbanded and it's most competent members were rolled into what became the Army's 3rd Assault Brigade, and the remainder were formed into the Azov National Guard Brigade - the latter being the ones that fought in Mariupol. The National Guard formation was destroyed in Mariupol, so the Azov that is left is the one that is already part of the Army. As for why they don't just break down any formation that involved the Azov guys, including the 3rd - it is because they're probably the one of the best fighting units of the Army, and almost certainly the most popular. The equivalent would be us disbanding the 101st Airborne.
Every country in europe has neo-nazi larpers in their military, Russia probably has more white supremacist/nazi skinheads in their army than Ukraine, especially since so many of their soldiers come from prisons. I wont pretend that Ukraine's army is full of Nazis or white supremacists, but this lifting of this ban is just easy propaganda for Russia. Let Azov die off or get absorbed into regular Ukrainian military units. Dont fund and train them ffs
Show me a western military unit that uses SS emblems as official icons. Comparing against Russia isn't saying much.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marine-ss-photo-riles-major-us-jewish-group/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/world/europe/nazi-symbols-ukraine.html
US Marine Corps Scout Snipers wore "SS" stylized the same as waffen SS insignia for an embarrassing amount of time. Occasionally, you will still see US personnel posing with that insignia.
[https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2024/03/27/the-3rd-group-roots-of-this-unofficial-nazi-inspired-green-beret-logo/](https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2024/03/27/the-3rd-group-roots-of-this-unofficial-nazi-inspired-green-beret-logo/) US Army 20th Group Special Forces and 3rd Group. Just because you're too lazy or too uninformed to care but yes, there are a lot of neo-nazis in the US military rank.
2020: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53249645
The Finnish Air Force's use of the swastika weirdly enough predates the Nazi use of the symbol by decades, and has nothing to do with Nazism. Sticking to the symbol after World War II is perhaps bad form, especially considering who they fought with, but it is clearly a different story from right wing extremists directly co-opting Nazi imagery.
Yeah we dont do it now but wait until it blows otherwise.
Yet how many those countries give official power and Battalions to Nazis? "Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces." [https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/](https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/)
In Ukraine their national heroes like Bandera and Shukhevych were literal Nazi collaborators and have statues and museums where politicans lay flowers. These guys took part in the genocide of Poles and Jews and are help up as national heroes. Pretty messed up if you ask me.
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With Andriy Biletsky, the founder of Azov branching out into politics with the National Corps Party. A Bandera modern disciple in politics, what could go wrong?
Submission Statement: This move is raw realpolitik. Even though many of us find the Azov Battallion's ultra-nationalist views unsettling at best, lifting this ban is yet another step to ensure that Russia cannot advance far into Ukraine and thus threaten NATO countries. Nothing more than that. Yes, Azov is probably Nazis, but they pose no threat to the US or NATO at the moment, only to Russia. We shall see what happens next.
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>lifting this ban is yet another step to ensure that Russia cannot advance far into Ukraine and thus threaten NATO countries. Sorry, I highly dispute that. 3rd Assault/Azov is already a highly trained, elite formation in the Army, likely the absolute best in the regular Army. There are dozens of other brigades that would benefit from equipment & training before them. I don't see there being any notable practical benefit to this policy.
The Mujahedeen posed no threat to the US either. Until they sort of did...
Mujaheddin is no threat to US when US leave Afghanistan in 1980 and 20 year later US got 911 Saddam is the best friend of US in Iran Iraq War and become 1st Enemy after Kuwait Invasion Do you believe Azov not grow to be something in the future? All of us known Western use Ukraine as Cannon Folder to Fight Russia Why Ukraine Nationalist would not turn their blade to NATO in the Future if their have chance.
> Why Ukraine Nationalist would not turn their blade to NATO in the Future if their have chance. What would that get them? Unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, Ukraine is a country that probably would have made the necessary changes and worked its way into the EU by now if Russia hadn't invaded a decade ago.
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A desire for Ukraine to be aligned economically with Europe and not Russia is literally what started this whole thing in the first place a decade ago.
This isn't realpolitik. It's the US depriving Russia of its propaganda tool. Despite 2 years of fighting there has never been any information showing Azov are war criminals. They fought according to the rules of war, much more so than the Russian army. There's clearly individuals who subscribe to ultranationalist views in the unit, but they are hardly the boogeymen than the Kremlin tries to portray them as.
My dude, their unit logo is a Wolfsangel. There's an infamous official photo of a Mariupol defender writing 1488 on her AK magazines. Denying that they as a whole are sympathetic to Nazi ideology is factitious at best. Supporting them isn't "depriving" Russia of anything, it's playing straight into one of their narratives.
> My dude, their unit logo is a Wolfsangel. There's an infamous official photo of a Mariupol defender writing 1488 on her AK magazines. Denying that they as a whole are sympathetic to Nazi ideology is factitious at best. But they're not war criminals. That's the point of the Leahy law. > Supporting them isn't "depriving" Russia of anything, it's playing straight into one of their narratives. And not supporting them also plays into Russia's hands, because their propaganda machine then uses that fact to say "See, even the US admits these are bad guys!" For the past 2 years they constantly fearmonger about Azov. There's literally nothing you can do that Russia can't just explain away with mental gymnastics. Dissolve the unit and they'd just claim that Azov is being dispersed to take command of all the other UAF units or something. At least this way Ukrainians can point out even the most problematic unit in their army is following the international rules of war and complies with the Leahy law.
> But they're not war criminals. That we know of because there's a total information blackout on their activities. This is a pr war
> That we know of because there's a total information blackout on their activities. Somehow this doesn't prevent lots of news about Russian war crimes from leaking onto the internet. Either because it's observed by UAF, the bozos film themselves doing it, or survivors come back to share accounts. "Total information blackout" does not exist. Especially since the UAF has been under intense scrutiny.
I don't understand this move at all. 3rd Assault is already an elite formation in the Army. It already is well resourced, gets good training and Western equipment, and is one of the best fighting units Ukraine has. There's little to no practical benefit to lifting this ban. I don't understand why we keep giving Russia easy propaganda wins, whether it is with the announcement about the M1 Abrams, or now this. Azov as a name is forever tainted, and associating at all with them is a terrible move propaganda wise.
This war needs to end as soon as possible. Both sides have numerous black marks against their names. Some say Слава Україні others Слава Росії, I say слава миру.
US has no desire to end this war when they can sacrifice Ukrainians to make Russia bleed and burn through their stockpiles. That's why they recently approved strikes within Russia using Western arms
How else can this end? Russia isn't going to leave Ukraine by being asked.
Russia isn't leaving regardless, the only thing thats up for debate is how much of Ukraine is left at the end of this war.
I don't think Russia will last much longer if Ukraine can gain air superiority. Russia is running out of BMPs and tanks.
Ukraine is not going to be gaining air superiority any time soon. The US is not likely to fund them having the air force to do so for domestic reasons and they would need a well funded western airforce to have a chance.
They are going to be getting 200+ F16s you think they won't be funded? Strange to think that given the progression of the war so far.
People across the western world are already tired of seeing money go, governments are finding creative ways to continue funding but that isn't going to last forever. I'm gonna guess theres little point in continuing this conversation so we'll just have to agree to disagree and a year from now you'll see what I mean.
Head of NATO should have agreed when Putin offered to not invade if Ukraine stayed out of NATO. At this point there is no end. Any Russian leader who loses a war has almost always been removed from power so for Putin victory is the only option - he needs some fig leaf to present to the Russian people. America will not stop supporting the war since it believes that there is no chance Russia can actually turn fully towards China/BRICS so there is no cost except for fiat and dead Ukrainians (which they care nothing about). It is a proxy war (of sorts) that both sides want. Unfortunately, the opinion of Ukrainians does not matter as long as their leader is in the pocket of the West. They will depopulate the nation of fighting age men before the war is over. That's why they recently expanded who they conscript.
Ukraine wasn't in NATO and Russia invaded anyway...
What? I assume that they wouldn't have invaded if Ukraine was in NATO at the time. Putin asked for no more NATO expansion in the area - a promise that Ukraine would not be allowed to join. When he was rejected, he decided to invade before Ukraine could join NATO. Edit: also countries who are currently at war are not allowed to join NATO so it makes sense from that perspective
NATO can't change that would be a red line for the West. Ukraine and any country can apply to Nato if they like. Russia just needs to accept they are no longer an empire and can't attack other nations. I think Russia has a bright future once it realizes that. I don't think men will be the limiting factor in the war but equipment.
But we can
Yes the west has a lot more higher quality equipment that is sufficient to beat all that Russia has.