https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Regiment
The Azov Assault Brigade (Штурмова бригада «Азов») - Azov Brigade (Азов бригада) for short, is a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard formed in November 2014 from a restructuring of the Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian Special Tasks Patrol Police, a paramilitary force formed by the far right Patriot of Ukraine political movement, when Azov was first incorporated into the National Guard it was known as the Azov Regiment (Полк «Азов»), but in early 2023 it expanded into a brigade, though it is still commonly called the Azov Battalion in common discourse.
As of early 2025 it has become the core of the Azov Corps.
Originally commanded by Andriy Biletsky, it is now commanded since 2017 (except for a brief period in 2022-2023) by Denys Propenko.
The Brigade also had an affiliated engineer corps, the Azov Engineering Group, until 2016, it also received support from the Eastern Corps Movement:
Activities
Members of the public organization took part in providing assistance to the Ukrainian security forces , which restrained the armed aggression of Russia in the east of Ukraine . In particular, they provided assistance to the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the “Eastern Corps” company and the “Azov” NGU regiment .
Members of Wotanjugend (Russian) have previously fought in the Brigade:
With the beginning full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine the band took part in hostilities on the side of Ukraine. In particular, Oleksiy Lyovkin fought in the composition at the beginning of the invasion regiment «Azov»10, and as of 2024, is fighting in the Russian Volunteer Corps in stock GUR MOU11.
Veterans of Azov formed a political organisation known as the Azov Civil Corps in spring 20151, which later became a political party known as the National Corps in 2016, these veterans formed their own splinter Azov military groups after the 2022 invasion, most of which merged into the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, one of the splinters, Lubart Brigade, has since merged into Azov Brigade instead.
Some Azov veterans have formed the membership of the National Corps affiliated Veterans Brotherhood, others have acted as representatives of the Radical Party of Oleh Liashko, led by Oleh Liashko, an early supporter of Azov when it was still a Battalion.
The Brigade is considered by some researchers to be a military wing of the Azov Movement, but the Battalion itself has disputed this term (see the Azov Movement page for details).
The current Azov Brigade claims to be apolitical and have no links to the National Corps, but this claim is strongly disputed and the regiment is widely believed to still be a politicised by the far right to a certain degree:
The relationship between the regiment and the National Corps is also blurred in the political messaging of Biletsky, who has posed with active duty Azov soldiers in political videos. National Corps figures routinely visit the regiment, and the party’s ideologists lecture Azov troops. Their blogs are published on the regiment’s site, while Azov’s social media pages promote the National Corps. According to an August 2017 video, ostensibly recorded at Azov’s base, emigre Russian neo-Nazi Alexey Levkin lectured the regiment.
In 2015 the Brigade was blacklisted from recieving arms or training as part of the US aid campaign to Ukraine by the US Congress (Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-06-12/ukraine-s-neo-nazis-won-t-get-u-s-money)
The Brigade was blacklisted from recieving US aid by the US Congress in 2018 (Source: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms-to-controversial-ukrainian-militia-linked-to-neo-nazis/) and in 2022 (Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2471/text “Sec. 8141. <<NOTE: Azov Battalion.>> None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.“)
The close alignment between the Azov Regiment and the National Corps continues under the Zelenskyy presidency. In March 2020, soldiers from the regiment were featured alongside leaders of the National Corps in a video ad for a rally meant as a warning to Zelenskyy’s government. (Sources: https://twitter.com/kooleksiy/status/1235927690345144322, https://twitter.com/kooleksiy/status/1235961674609364993) Based on this evidence, it is clear that the Regiment has failed in its alleged attempts to “depoliticize.”
This makes it next to impossible to draw a clear line between the regiment itself and the wider Azov movement, including the National Corps. But does the Azov movement merit a Foreign Terrorist Organization designation? There are three criteria that must be met: the organization must be foreign; it must engage in terrorist activity or retain the capacity and intent to engage in terrorist activity; and the organization’s terrorist activity must threaten the security of US nationals or the national security of the United States. US law enforcement is already keeping an eye on Americans that are in contact with the Azov movment, as then-acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan confirmed in October 2019.
Since the beginning of 2018, C14 and other far-right groups such as the Azov-affiliated National Militia, Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, and others have attacked Roma groups several times, as well as anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, an event hosted by Amnesty International, art exhibitions, LGBT events, and environmental activists. On March 8, violent groups launched attacks against International Women’s Day marchers in cities across Ukraine. In only a few of these cases did police do anything to prevent the attacks, and in some they even arrested peaceful demonstrators rather than the actual perpetrators.
To be clear, far-right parties like Svoboda perform poorly in Ukraine’s polls and elections, and Ukrainians evince no desire to be ruled by them. But this argument is a bit of “red herring.” It’s not extremists’ electoral prospects that should concern Ukraine’s friends, but rather the state’s unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity. Whether this is due to a continuing sense of indebtedness to some of these groups for fighting the Russians or fear they might turn on the state itself, it’s a real problem and we do no service to Ukraine by sweeping it under the rug.
In 2023 the unit was visited by affiliates of the terror organisation Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordic Countries)
The NMR also has links to the Ukrainian Azov Regiment: The far-right podcast “FashCast” published an interview between a member of the Finnish NMR and Olena Semenyaka, the so-called “First Lady” and spokeswoman of the far-right paramilitary volunteer battalion in Ukraine. In the interview, Semenyaka mentions a “foreign legion” in Ukraine that international volunteers could join, as well as military training camps at the Azov camp in eastern Ukraine. A delegation of the Finnish NMR visited the Azov Regiment in Kyiv in 2019.
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