The fighters of the Azov battalion lined up in single file to say farewell to
their fallen comrade. His pallid corpse lay under the sun in an open casket
trimmed with blue velvet.
Some of the men placed carnations by the body, others roses. Many struck their
chests with a closed fist before touching their dead friend’s arm. One
fighter had an SS tattoo on his neck.
Sergiy Grek, 22, lost a leg and died from massive blood loss after a
radio-controlled anti-tank mine exploded near to him.
As Ukraine’s armed forces tighten the noose around pro-Russian separatists in
the east of the country, the western-backed government in Kiev is throwing
militia groups – some openly neo-Nazi - into the front of the battle.
The Azov battalion has the most chilling reputation of all. Last week, it came
to the fore as it mounted a bold attack on the rebel redoubt of Donetsk,
striking deep into the suburbs of a city under siege.
In Marinka, on the western outskirts, the battalion was sent forward ahead of
tanks and armoured vehicles of the Ukrainian army’s 51st Mechanised Brigade.
A ferocious close-quarters fight ensued as they got caught in an ambush laid
by well-trained separatists, who shot from 30 yards away. The Azov
irregulars replied with a squall of fire, fending off the attack and seizing
a rebel checkpoint.
Mr Grek, also known as “Balagan”, died in the battle and 14 others were
wounded. Speaking after the ceremony Andriy Biletsky, the battalion’s
commander, told the Telegraph the operation had been a “100% success”. “The
battalion is a family and every death is painful to us but these were
minimal losses,” he said. “Most important of all, we established a
bridgehead for the attack on Donetsk. And when that comes we will be leading
the way.”
The military achievement is hard to dispute. By securing Marinka the battalion
“widened the front and tightened the circle”, around the rebels’ capital, as
another fighter put it. While Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president,
prevaricates about sending an invasion force into Ukraine, the rebels he
backs are losing ground fast.
But Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed
Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”, proclaimed in eastern Ukraine in
March, should send a shiver down Europe’s spine. Recently formed battalions
such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their
command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their
financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often
alarming.
The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner
and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.
“Personally, I’m a Nazi,” said “Phantom”, a 23-year-old former lawyer at the
ceremony wearing camouflage and holding a Kalashnikov. “I don’t hate any
other nationalities but I believe each nation should have its own country.”
He added: “We have one idea: to liberate our land from terrorists.”
The Telegraph was invited to see some 300 Azov fighters pay respects to Mr
Grek, their first comrade to die since the battalion was formed in May. An
honour guard fired volleys into the air at the battalion’s headquarters on
the edge of Urzuf, a small beach resort on Ukraine’s Azov Sea coast. Two
more militiamen died on Sunday fighting north of Donetsk <<Aug 10>>.
Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, called one of them a hero.
Each new recruit receives only a couple of weeks of training before joining
the battalion. The interior ministry and private donors provide weapons.
The HQ is a seaside dacha compound dotted with pines that once belonged to the
ousted president of Ukraine, Vladimir Yanukovich, when he was governor of
this region. Families in swimsuits with towels and inflatable rings walk
past gate-guards toting automatic rifles.
Parked inside among wooden gazebos overlooking the sea are the tools of Azov’s
trade – two armoured personnel carriers, a converted truck with retractable
steel shutters to cover its windows, and several Nissan pick-ups fitted with
machine-gun mounts.
Mr Biletsky, a muscular man in a black T-shirt and camouflage trousers, said
the battalion was a light infantry unit, ideal for the urban warfare needed
to take cities like Donetsk.
The 35-year old commander began creating the battalion after he was released
from pre-trial detention in February in the wake of pro-western protests in
Kiev. He had denied a charge of attempted murder, claiming it was
politically motivated.
A former history student and amateur boxer, Mr Biletsky is also head of an
extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly. “The historic
mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of
the world in a final crusade for their survival,” he wrote in a recent
commentary. “A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”
The battalion itself is founded on right wing views, the commander said in
Urzuf, and no Nazi convictions could exclude a recruit. “The most important
thing is being a good fighter and a good brother so that we can trust each
other,” he said.
Interestingly, many of the men in the battalion are Russians from eastern
Ukraine who wear masks because they fear their relatives in rebel-controlled
areas could be persecuted if their identities are revealed.
Phantom said he was such a Russian but that he was opposed to Moscow
supporting “terrorists” in his homeland: “I volunteered and all I demanded
was a gun and the possibility to defend my country.”
Asked about his Nazi sympathies, he said: “After the First World World War,
Germany was a total mess and Hitler rebuilt it: he built houses and roads,
put in telephone lines, and created jobs. I respect that.” Homosexuality is
a mental illness and the scale of the Holocaust “is a big question”, he
added.
Stepan, 23, another fighter, said that if leaders of the pro-Russian
separatists were captured they should be executed after a military tribunal.
Such notions seem a far cry from the spirit of the “Maidan” protests that
peaked in Kiev in February with the ousting of Mr Yanukovich, who had
refused to sign a trade agreement with the European Union. Young liberals
led the way but the uprising, which ended with the president fleeing to
Russia, provoked a huge patriotic awakening that sucked in hardline groups.
Azov’s extremist profile and slick English–language pages on social media have
even attracted foreign fighters. Mr Biletsky says he has men from Ireland,
Italy, Greece and Scandinavia. At the base in Urzuf, Mikael Skillt, 37, a
former sniper with the Swedish Army and National Guard, leads and trains a
reconnaissance unit.
“When I saw the Maidan protests I recognised bravery and suffering,” he told
the Telegraph. “A warrior soul was awakened. But you can only do so much,
going against the enemy with sticks and stones. I had some experience and I
though maybe I could help.”
Mr Skillt says he called himself a National Socialist as a young man and more
recently he was active in the extreme right wing Party of the Swedes. “Now
I’m fighting for the freedom of Ukraine against Putin’s imperialist front,”
he said.
His unit is improving fast under his tutelage. “What they lack in experience,
they make up in balls,” he said. Once he is done with Azov –where he claimed
he receives a nominal GBP100 a month – Mr Skillt plans to go to Syria to
fight for President Bashar al-Assad as a hired gun earning “very good
money”.
Such characters under Kiev’s control play straight into the hands of Russian
and separatist propaganda that portrays Ukraine’s government as a “fascist
junta” manipulated by the West.
“These battalions are made up of mercenaries, not volunteers,” said Sergei
Kavtaradze, a representative of the rebel authorities in Donetsk. “They are
real fascists who kill and rape civilians.” Mr Kavtaradze could not cite
evidence of his claim and the battalion says it has not harmed a single
civilian.
Ukraine’s government is unrepentant about using the neo-Nazis. “The most
important thing is their spirit and their desire to make Ukraine free and
independent,” said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Arsen Avakov, the
interior minister. “A person who takes a weapon in his hands and goes to
defend his motherland is a hero. And his political views are his own affair.”
Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian and Ukrainian security affairs at New York
University, fears battalions like Azov are becoming “magnets to attract
violent fringe elements from across Ukraine and beyond”. “The danger is that
this is part of the building up of a toxic legacy for when the war ends,” he
said.
Extremist paramilitary groups who have built up “their own little Freikorps”
and who are fundamentally opposed to finding consensus may demand a part in
public life as victors in the conflict, Mr Galeotti added. “And what do you
do when the war is over and you get veterans from Azov swaggering down your
high street, and in your own lives?”
