The Azov Regiment is not neo-Nazi, extremist and far-right: what is this special forces unit really?
Azov Regiment continues to be absurdly accused of being “neo-nazi/extremists/far-right”. Working with Western media as an expert Maria Zolkina, analyst at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, states that journalists in many cases do not dig deep, don’t understand the context, and use myths about Azov without the attempt of fact checking.
Here is a Where are media often wrong?
1. Biletsky isn’t a leader of Azov. He neither commands it nor influences commanders. He has no formal relation to the regiment, which is part of the National Guard of Ukraine. He is the leader of the party “National corpus”, but commanded Azov for only several months in 2014.
No, Azov isn’t a military wing of the party “National corpus”. Azov was founded by Biletsky, and he has been benefiting from its image since then. There are personal links between former and current soldiers of Azov, but that doesn’t mean Azov is guided or commanded from outside.