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Greek in Mariupol: “The fascist Ukrainians would kill me, they don’t let us leave the city”

category international | anti-war / imperialism | other press author Saturday March 05, 2022 01:38author by Athens Bureau

With Russian forces besieging Mariupol, in which 120,000+ ethnic Greeks live, SKAI news spoke with a Mr Kiouranas who lives in the city and exposed that Ukrainian “fascists” are killing people for trying to leave the city.
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Video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1498173995698565123 Link to Twitter Video

When asked by SKAI news if he planned to leave the city, Kiouranas responded “how can I leave? When you try to leave you run the risk of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion.”

“They would kill me and are responsible for everything,” he added.

Who are the Azov Battalion?

Azov Special Operations Detachment (Ukrainian: Окремий загін спеціального призначення «Азов»), or Azov Battalion, is a right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Sea coastal region.

In 2014, the regiment gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and war crimes, as well as neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment itself, as seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, one of the original symbols used by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.

Representatives of the Azov Battalion say that the symbol is an abbreviation for the slogan Ідея Нації (Ukrainian for “National Idea”) and deny connection with Nazism.

In 2014, a spokesman for the regiment said around 10–20% of the unit were neo-Nazis.

In 2018, a provision in an appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress blocked military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology; in 2015, a similar ban on aid to the group was overturned by the Congress.

Members of the regiment come from 22 countries and are of various backgrounds

More than half of the regiment’s members speak Russian and come from eastern Ukraine, including cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The unit’s first commander was far-right nationalist Andriy Biletsky, who led the neo-Nazi Social-National Assembly and Patriot of Ukraine.

In its early days, Azov was a special police company of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, led by Volodymyr Shpara, the leader of the Vasylkiv, Kyiv, branch of Patriot of Ukraine and Right Sector.

In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives also passed a provision blocking any training of Azov members by American forces, citing its neo-Nazi connections.

The House had previously passed amendments banning support of Azov between 2014 and 2017, but due to pressure from The Pentagon, the amendments were quietly lifted.

This was protested by the Simon Wiesenthal Center which stated that lifting the ban highlighted the danger of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine.

“Of course not, it’s all made up, there are just a lot of people who are interested in Nordic mythology,” said one fighter when asked by The Guardian in 2014 if there were neo-Nazis in the battalion.

When asked what his own political views were, however, he said “national socialist”. As for the swastika tattoos on at least one man seen at the Azov base, “the swastika has nothing to do with the Nazis, it was an ancient sun symbol,” he claimed.

The battalion has drawn far-right volunteers from abroad, such as Mikael Skillt, a 37-year-old Swede, trained as a sniper in the Swedish army, who described himself as an “ethnic nationalist” and fights on the front line with the battalion.

Another speaking to The Guardian, Dmitry, said “I have nothing against Russian nationalists, or a great Russia. But Putin’s not even a Russian. Putin’s a Jew.”

Dmitry claimed not to be a Nazi, but waxed lyrical about Adolf Hitler as a military leader, and believes the Holocaust never happened.

Not everyone in the Azov battalion thinks like Dmitry, but after speaking with dozens of its fighters and embedding on several missions during the past week in and around the strategic port city of Mariupol, the Guardian found many of them to have disturbing political views, and almost all to be intent on “bringing the fight to Kiev” when the war in the east is over.



For more background on the Far Right in Ukraine see:
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-s-got-a-real-problem-with-far-right-violence-and-no-rt-didn-t-write-this-headline/

And see How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/

And see Under the Wolfsangel: The uncomfortable truth about radical ideologies in Ukraine
The Nazi influence on modern-day Ukrainian politics is clear, tangible, and willfully ignored by its Western supporters

The Bibi Yar memorial in Kiev where 33,771 Jewish Ukrainians were shot in two days, on September 29 and 30, 1941, by the Ukrainian Waffen SS and Reinhard Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen. This massacre was celebrated as a victory by the mainstream nationalists. Today, the Ukrainian government has named the main avenue leading to it after the integral nationalist Stepan Bandera, "in honor" of the greatest criminal in its history.

Related Link: https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/03/01/greek-in-mariupol-fascist-ukrainian/

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The Bibi Yar memorial in Kiev. 33 771 Jewish Ukrainians were shot in two days, on September 29 and 30, 1941, by the Ukrainian Waffen SS and Reinhard Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen. This massacre was celebrated as a victory by the mainstream nationalists
The Bibi Yar memorial in Kiev. 33 771 Jewish Ukrainians were shot in two days, on September 29 and 30, 1941, by the Ukrainian Waffen SS and Reinhard Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen. This massacre was celebrated as a victory by the mainstream nationalists

Comments (3 of 3)

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author by Monotipublication date Sat Mar 12, 2022 11:41author address author phone

A girl who managed to flee Mariupol says the Ukrainian Forces are shooting at evacuees. She stresses the Ukrainian troops violated the ceasefire two hours after it started




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author by Tpublication date Sun Mar 20, 2022 21:14author address author phone

Despite the Left making a show of themselves during the Covid scamdemic by supporting the lies, they are having trouble standing by while the mainstream media ignores the fact that Neo Nazis are running the country in Ukraine. This from WSWS website.

Ukrainian news anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann, calls for genocide against Russians

A Ukrainian television newscaster went on a fascist rant on national television on March 12, calling for the massacre of Russian children and the elimination of Russia from the face of the earth.

Channel 24 anchor Fahruddin Sharafmal made the statement following a report on the death of his friend, a Ukrainian Armed Forces member, who was killed fighting Russian forces over the weekend. He used the occasion to broadcast a photo of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann over his right shoulder and appeal for the murder of millions of Ukrainian citizens who are also Russians.

Related Link: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/17/ukre-m17.html
author by Tpublication date Wed Mar 23, 2022 23:18author address author phone

March 11th was the 76th anniversary of the since the coordinated attack by Ukrainian nationalists on 99 Polish towns and villages in Wołyń.

Between 1943 and 1945, members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army massacred thousands of Poles throughout Wołyń, a region that was in Nazi-occupied Poland and is part of present-day Ukraine.

Throughout the period, it is estimated that around 100,000 Poles died at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. As part of retaliatory actions, Poles killed between 15,000 and 20,000 Ukrainians.

Over 100,000 slaughtered with axes, pitchforks, scythes and knives: The Wołyń massacre started 76 years ago today and lasted for two years

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/over-100000-slaughtered-with-axes-pitchforks-scythes-and-knives-the-wolyn-massacre-started-76-years-ago-today-and-lasted-for-two-years-6714

Polish victims of a massacre committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the village of Lipniki, Wołyń, 1943.
Polish victims of a massacre committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the village of Lipniki, Wołyń, 1943.


http://www.indymedia.ie/article/108156

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