On March 22, shortly after the spring equinox, the Hitlerite core of the Azov movement could not resist the urge to highlight the 1488th day of the Russo-Ukrainian war, simply because this is the favorite number of many neo-Nazis around the world. In the 1980s, U.S. neo-Nazi leader David Lane wrote his Fourteen Words (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”) and “88 Precepts” in a prison cell. “88” (H.H.) is a well-known code for “Heil Hitler.”

Among those who commemorated the 1488th day, Dmitriy Krukovsky from the 53rd Mechanized Brigade and Alexey Levkin from Ukraine’s Russian Volunteer Corps came as no surprise. Krukovsky has a tattoo of Adolf Hitler, and led the Azovite paramilitary youth group Centuria in 2024-25. The Russian Levkin, a celebrity ideologue in Centuria, is the chief organizer of National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) concerts in Ukraine, and even a “Fuhrernight” in 2019. Levkin sings,

Blood and soil under wheels of Totenkopf

Pressing rivals’ short skulls into filthy mire

Preachers of Kabbalah, offspring thereof

Labour in Death Camps, burn in furnace fire

3rd Assault Brigade medic Yury Pavlyshyn, now a leader of its Hatred Battalion who appears on billboards and in videos for the 3rd Army Corps, is the bass guitar player in Levkin’s Russo-Ukrainian NSBM bands M8L8TH (aka “Hitler’s Hammer”) and AKVLT (“Adolf Cult”). Pavlyshyn’s latest tattoo is of Charles Manson, so of course he also had to post something — the same image as Krukovsky, who reposted it from a mutual friend of the Russian Volunteer Corps’ commander “White Rex.”

From Pavlyshyn, the image found Yan Klishayev, who I wrote about recently. Klishayev, the neo-Nazi coordinator of the new Veteran Corps of the Azov movement, also acknowledged the 1488 milestone, on the day before he signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Minister for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.

“Bolgar,” a notable Azovite in the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), who used to have the numbers 14 and 88 in his Instagram username, shared the same screenshot from an application counting the days since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. He formed the openly neo-Nazi “Neptune” group in the 12th Azov Brigade (even featuring an 88 in its emblem), and now commands the personnel training battalion of the 1st Azov Corps. Vladyslav Blinsky, a company commander from the 3rd Assault Brigade and co-founder of the popular Azovite brand “Only Wars,” captioned a picture of himself with a POW, “1488 days of this fool.”

Neo-Nazi football hooligans, who gave rise to the Azov movement years ago, naturally found reason to celebrate, for example the “Dynamo Ultras,” part of the “White Boys Club” in Kyiv. “Northern Division,” the new youth movement associated with the neo-Nazi rap group “Nord Division,” held a “large-scale sporting event” (big brawl of hooligans) apparently supported by the HUR, or Ukrainian military intelligence. Nord Division originated in the Azovite HUR Kraken regiment.

Supposedly these fanatics commemorated Ukrainian Volunteer Day from the previous weekend, but they posed with a large banner that said “1488 days of war.” As told by Events in Ukraine, “Nord Division” has a neo-Nazi rap song according to which HUR chief Kyrylo Budanov “supervises us” and “gives us assignments,” and even “listens to our tracks in Russian” before interviews. “All of Ukraine’s counterintelligence says that we are art.” Now Budanov heads the Office of the President.

Almost a month earlier, the full-scale war in Ukraine entered its 5th year. Stanislav Ryzhenkov, a veteran of the NGU Azov Regiment, received a standing ovation in the European Parliament (as seen in the video below). “We will win this war,” he said. Ryzhenkov, a former POW after his neo-Nazi unit surrendered in Mariupol, is now an advisor to the mayor of Kyiv as the city council’s commissioner for veterans affairs. He addressed the European Parliament at the invitation of center-right Lithuanian MEP Petras Auštrevičius, who previously won an auction for a framed photo of Ryzhenkov missing an arm in the Azovstal complex in Mariupol.

Meanwhile in Kyiv’s Mariinsky Palace, a visibly uncomfortable Volodymyr Zelensky handed the “Hero of Ukraine” award to an emotionless senior lieutenant in the Azov movement’s 3rd Assault Brigade. In 2022, Oleksandr Khyzhnayk joined the 98th Territorial Defense Battalion “Azov-Dnipro,” a unit with neo-Nazi emblems that formed the 1st Mechanized Battalion in the 3rd Assault Brigade. “There is no exhaustion from the war,” he said after the ceremony.

There is a certain demotivation due to what is happening outside the army. Corruption scandals, the population’s support for the military has decreased, and of course, scandals with the TCK [mobilization offices], namely people who see TCK employees as the enemy…

Commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces General Oleksandr Syrsky also presented awards to service members of the NGU 1st Azov Corps. And at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, there was a documentary screening co-starring Vladislav Shatilo, a neo-Nazi Azov veteran. He appeared at last year’s February 24 NATO HQ commemoration in connection with the film.

Vladislav Shatilo, a friend of the Hitler-tattooed Centuria leader Dmitriy Krukovsky, now leads the Veteran Corps in Chernihiv. Vladislav Shatilo used to be a football hooligan, part of the “SS Men” (Parny SS) ultras along with his friend Oleksandr Tarnavsky, who has a swastika tattoo, and led the local branch of the National Corps, the political party of the Azov movement.

At a February 24th demonstration in Brussels, a representative of the Azovite patronage service told the media, “I want to say to all Europeans that although you try to understand Ukrainians, you cannot.”

Someone who works with NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic commented that day, “The most exciting part of the frontier now is UGVs [Unmanned Ground Vehicles]. They are becoming stronger, faster, more independent and are an integral part of how the 3rd Assault Brigade fights.” Perhaps he saw that the Modern War Institute at West Point had just published “War Without Soldiers: The Evolution of Warfare in the Age of Machines,” a blog post that General James Mingus wrote (with the help of an intelligence officer) days after he ceased to be the 39th vice chief of staff of the US army.

General Mingus’ short February 24 article opened with a robotic military operation of the Azovite 3rd Assault Brigade from last summer, the claim to fame for its star UGV company “NC13,” which originated in a unit with a modified emblem of the Waffen-SS Dirlewanger Brigade. That day the London-based magazine New Scientist also published a report from the Azov movement’s “Killhouse Academy” in Kyiv which opened a school for UGV operators last summer: “How Ukraine became a drone factory and invented the future of war.”

At the Latvian National Opera in Riga, the President of Latvia attended a Ukraine-themed concert, which featured a screening of Azovite propaganda directed by Yevhen Matviyenko, in particular two episodes of his “Varta” project. I already wrote about one of them before. “Made in Ukraine” showcases proud neo-Nazis in the Special Operations Forces “Azov-Kyiv” Regiment established in 2022, which spearheaded the 3rd Assault Brigade, the elite infantry unit that now leads the 3rd Army Corps. The other short film “She” features some women from the 3rd Assault Brigade, including a hardcore neo-Nazi who died in the war, and a medic now serving in the Hatred Battalion.

According to the Russian Volunteer Corps, the high-profile neo-Nazi HUR unit, its supporters took to the streets in Germany, Austria, France, Finland, Poland, and even Israel on February 24. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian historian Marta Havryshko noted, “Italian neo-fascists affiliated with CasaPound organized a commemorative marathon on the streets of Italy, honoring Ukrainian far-right fighters from Azov, Right Sector, and other groups who were killed during the war. Many of them were posthumously awarded the title of Heroes of Ukraine. Streets, schools, and other public facilities have been named after them.”

Anyway, here’s a table of contents for today’s post.

• Russian Nazis on the rise in Ukraine?

• Nazi propaganda roundup

• Heroization and Azovization

• Conferences (Davos—Kyiv—London—DC—and beyond…)

Russian Nazis on the rise in Ukraine?

Once upon a time, all the way back in 2023, the western media had little to no problem acknowledging that Ukraine’s small Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK, Russkiy Dobrovol’cheskiy Korpus) is a far-right (neo-Nazi) unit. At the end of last summer, The Telegraph in London published an article about the RDK that only briefly mentioned a “far-Right [sic] extremist” founded the group. This is how publications like the New York Times learned to write about the National Guard’s Azov Regiment in 2022.

Otherwise The Telegraph made the RDK sound like a heroic anti-Putin resistance movement. “Not a word about its fascist and racist manifesto. Not a word about the neo-Nazis in their ranks. Not a word about the fact that some RDK members openly celebrate Hitler and justify his crimes,” Marta Havryshko publicly commented on the article. “And not a word about how the West is effectively propping up these extremists.” The journalist Leonid Ragozin pointed out, RDK commander Denis Kapustin (aka “White Rex”) even “attacked and injured England [football] fans, turning Marseilles into a war zone in 2016,” but that’s water under the bridge.

In October, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) agreed to create a “Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces.” Maria Mezentseva chairs the Ukrainian delegation to PACE and the Ukrainian parliament’s commission to “Make Russia Small Again.” She immediately called for the neo-Nazi RDK to be included. By November, the exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky invited RDK ideologue Vasily “Cardinal” Kiryushchenko to a meeting of his Anti-War Committee in Brussels. As Leonid Ragozin explains, “Cardinal” is “the son of the film director responsible for Servant of the People - the series that turned Zelensky into who he is today.” Events in Ukraine wrote about Kiryushchenko, the well-connected “Showbiz Hitlerian,” earlier this year.

In the meantime, RDK culture warrior Alexey Levkin’s band “Adolf Cult” released a live album from a 2025 performance in Lviv, and the Azovite paramilitary youth group Centuria celebrated its 5th anniversary. The RDK is strongly connected to Centuria, arguably the neo-Nazi backbone of the Azov movement. Levkin, a leader of the Hitler-worshipping “Wotanjugend,” has always been a prominent ideologist in Centuria, which is largely populated by fans of his National Socialist Black Metal music.

They also share some martyrs. For example, one of the top RDK fighters killed in the war, “Tourist,” was a “legionnaire” of Centuria. “Nord Storm” was another group (founded by prominent Centuria members, all dead now) that glorified Hitler. Last year, Nord Storm’s reconnaissance platoon, “Hatred,” created a battalion in the 3rd Assault Brigade that is now one of its most heavily neo-Nazi units, including squads from the Azovite group “Avangard,” the Kharkiv branch of Centuria, and the Russian “Format18” (that is 18 as in A.H., Adolf Hitler).

The Nazi punk band “Apartheid” also appears to be linked to the Hatred Battalion. Levkin’s bass guitar player Yury “Doom” Pavlyshyn became a spokesperson for the unit in late October when he issued the call for international volunteers to join them. By late November, “Doom” (and apparently others from Nord Storm) visited the CasaPound headquarters in Rome. The Italian neofascists from CasaPound are some of the most eager partners of the Azovites, for example when they participated in a “Nation Europa” conference that Pavlyshyn co-organized with the RDK in 2024.

Alexey Levkin and Vasily Kiryushchenko spoke at the national academy of the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs in December, just days after the 10th anniversary of M8L8TH (“Hitler’s Hammer”) starting a new chapter in Ukraine after leaving Russia. Meanwhile, Pavlyshyn and other pagan neo-Nazis connected to the Azov movement prepared for the winter solstice, and the RDK submitted its application to join the Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces, declaring itself “the only military-political organization within the Russian opposition, as well as the only one with a nationalist orientation.”

On December 25 in an undisclosed location in the Ukrainian capital, M8L8TH, AKVLT, Apartheid and other neo-Nazi bands performed at “Yule Night,” the latest underground NSBM festival starring Alexey Levkin. The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Hatred Battalion of the 3rd Assault Brigade organized the event, and the RDK commander gave a speech. They allegedly sold 1,500 tickets. “The swastika will forgive your enemies,” declared the lead singer of Apartheid.

Attendees included Artem “Grot” Kuzmich, a Belarusian Azov veteran who had recently signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Youth and Sports on behalf of his Azovite biker fight club “M13.” Not long before that, “United24 Media” profiled his biker club “Memoria 13.” United24 Media is a Ukrainian government outlet that promotes the Azov units so regularly that it’s not worth including in my “Nazi propaganda roundup” (the next section of this article).

One might expect the famous 3rd Assault Brigade to keep its distance from “Yule Night,” but the Hatred Battalion is becoming one of the Azovites’ star units, along with the new “Kraken 1654” regiment in the 3rd Army Corps, the leadership of which is also very close to the Russian Volunteer Corps.

Two days after the concert, the 3rd Assault Brigade, Centuria, Kraken 1654, and other Azovites mourned the death of RDK commander Denis Kapustin, but this turned out to be a hoax by the HUR, ostensibly to swindle his Russian assassins. The Telegraph jumped at the story and seemingly almost forgot to mention that Kapustin is a “far-Right extremist” (apparently copy and pasting that from its last article). The journalist Leonid Ragozin commented on his “death,”

Among the mourners of Denis “WhiteRex” Nikitin/Kapustin, former Russian oligarch and current Haaretz co-owner Leonid Nevzlin stands out in a big way. “Be blessed the memory of Denis”, he wrote himself and circulated several other obituaries, including the one which says that “unlike Navalny, WhiteRex was a symbol of real power”. As his alias attests, Nikitin [Denis Kapustin] was a symbol of the “white power” movement, a neo-nazi who was banned from entering Germany where he grew up for exactly that, being a nazi. There’s no big surprise an Israeli businessman glorifies a person like that these days.

It’s intriguing to note that Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov resurrected Denis Kapustin just one day before Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Budanov to lead the Office of the President of Ukraine. Kapustin’s fake death could have been a special operation to boost the standing of Budanov and the RDK, which was seeking admission to PACE’s new platform. Events in Ukraine published a very informative article on the RDK’s rise in the Russian opposition.

“A real denazificiaton has occurred!” The Lithuania-based Russian politician Leonid Volkov, who worked closely with the late Alexei Navalny, fell in hot water for privately celebrating Kapustin’s demise: “finally, this Nazi has died.” He also wished for Budanov to land in prison. Oops! According to the New York Times, “The reaction among Lithuanian leaders to Mr. Volkov’s remarks was swift,” and even the Prime Minister called for his expulsion. Ukraine reportedly charged Volkov with “justifying Russian aggression.”

Back from the dead, Kapustin publicly fired off disgusting messages to the historian Marta Havryshko, a prominent researcher of the far-right in Ukraine. Leonid Ragozin observed that he was “back to his usual agenda.”

His last five [Telegram] posts are dedicated to black women who won beauty pageants in Brandenburg (2025) and Helsinki (2017). It’s all proof that “globalists, leftists and their media dogs have decided to attack European culture and white ethnicity”, he claims.

Later in January, the German journalist Susann Witt-Stahl reported for junge Welt that the RDK partnered with the “Free Russia” association in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. Navalny supporters created this Düsseldorf-based organization connected to the center-right Free Democratic Party. Events in Ukraine noted that “Antifa.ru provided two explanations of why exactly the RDK has launched this campaign to re-enter the broader anti-Putin liberal opposition.” For starters, peace negotiations could lead to the liquidation of the unit.

Under such conditions, RDK members may require asylum in other “unfriendly countries.” However, their reputation as neo-Nazis and their ties to far-right extremist circles would work against them—who would want such a headache at home, especially given their combat experience? Overcoming this would only be possible with the help of political lobbying, which in turn means that some kind of political subject within the Russian opposition abroad would need to be formed in advance: establishing connections, finding guarantors, and so on.

In the coming days, United24 Media highlighted “Russia’s Growing Neo-Nazi Networks” that “act with relative impunity,” in particular the group “NS/WP” (National Socialism/White Power). Actually, Events in Ukraine informs us, “the NS/WP isn’t an organization that one can join, but merely a brand name” that has “declared total war with the Russian state.” Furthermore, it is “widely respected” by neo-Nazis in Russia and Ukraine.

In 2023, the Ukraine-based Russian politician Ilya Ponomarev (accidentally?) published a NS/WP manual, which he later blamed on the RDK. In 2024, the NS/WP took credit for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist politician Iryna Farion after she denigrated the Russian-speaking Azovites. “Luckily there won’t be any more vomit coming out of her filthy mouth,” declared Aleksey Kozhemyakin, a Russian neo-Nazi commander in the 3rd Assault Brigade. Last autumn, he showed up in a courthouse in western Ukraine on behalf of half a dozen fighters from his Azovite unit that Ternopil police detained for violently kidnapping people, extorting them, and confiscating their property.

Earlier this year, Marta Havryshko noticed that the Hatred Battalion put out a recruitment video in Russian. “Where is the language ombudswoman?” she wondered. “Where are all those brave crusaders who regularly go after Russian-speaking internally displaced people — scolding them for speaking Russian and somehow holding them personally responsible for Russian missiles?” Clearly, Russian-speaking neo-Nazis “act with relative impunity” in Ukraine.

The Azovite 3rd Army Corps signed a memorandum of cooperation with the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in February. “This is a partnership about preserving the memory, truth, and history of our struggle,” according to Dmytro Kukharchuk, the deputy commander of the 3rd Army Corps responsible for its ideological service. In March, the neo-Nazi RDK opened an exhibition at the World War II museum in Kyiv, which was promoted by Ukrainian military intelligence. Leonid Ragozin wrote about this desecration.

An overwhelming majority of today’s Ukrainians come from families whose members fought on the Soviet side in the WWII. But Lyovkin [Alexei Levkin]’s Russian Volunteer Corps draws inspiration from Gen. Andrey Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army created by the nazis out of Soviet POWs and White Guard emigres. The exhibition in the museum was adorned with RVC’s [Russian Volunteer Corps’] Spayka logo coined as a symbol of the Russian Fascist Party which was set up by young White Guard emigres in the 1930s.

The exhibition at the WWII museum is a larger-than-life manifestation of something which the self-proclaimed “liberal” supporters of Ukraine tend to deny - that the rehabilitation of nazism is part of the government’s policy. The museum, one of Ukraine’s largest, is of course run by Ukraine’s ministry of culture. The museum announced in 2024 that it would remove all the massive Soviet era bass reliefs and other monuments in its territory which depicted Soviet soldiers who fought in the WWII.

According to the museum,

In his opening remarks, the Director General of the Museum, Yurii Savchuk, shared memories of when and how the idea for a joint project between the RDK soldiers and our institution first emerged. It happened during the premiere of a film detailing the Corps’ operation to liberate the Vovchansk Aggregate Plant. The screening, also held at the Museum, evoked a wave of genuine emotion from the audience.

In this 2024 HUR operation, the Russian Volunteer Corps lost two men from the Ukrainian branch of “Blood and Honour,” which the Canadian government considers to be a neo-Nazi terrorist organization. The mission involved other units from the HUR’s International Legion and Tymur Special Unit that joined the “Nation Europa” conference just a month earlier. The HUR released a photo from Vovchansk with two soldiers making Nazi salutes. The “Junger Group,” which also participated, still has a picture with Nazi salutes as one of its first Instagram posts. Budanov reportedly joined his neo-Nazi fighters during a “key stage” of the Vovchansk operation. Today he is undoubtedly one of the most powerful people in Ukraine.

Nazi propaganda roundup

In the first days of autumn, Centuria hosted a screening of 2000 Meters to Andriivka, a documentary from PBS Frontline and the Associated Press starring an openly neo-Nazi unit in the 3rd Assault Brigade. As I mentioned in my last article, the film ends with a fascistic ceremony honoring the brigade’s fighters who died in battle. 2000 Meters follows the Hydra platoon. Denis “War” Sokur, its battalion commander, is a neo-Nazi leader of the Azov movement in the Sumy region who works with his local Centuria branch.

The director’s previous film, 20 Days in Mariupol, glossed over the NGU Azov Regiment and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2024, so 2000 Meters came with high expectations. It recently upset some people that the Oscars and the British Academy Film Awards “snubbed” the Ukrainian war movie and honored a Russian anti-war project instead, Mr. Nobody Against Putin.

Foreign Policy published an article at the end of September, “The Controversial Past of Ukraine’s Newest Heroes.” This piece by Berlin-based journalist Paul Hockenos focused on the 1st Azov Corps and 12th Azov Brigade in the National Guard. According to him, the NGU Azov fighters had an “early association with far-right parties and figures,” but “by late 2016”(!) they “shed any vestiges of political extremism.” The next day, Zelensky handed the “Hero of Ukraine” award to NGU Azov officer Denis “Byk” Tkalych, another neo-Nazi from the Neptune unit who oversees the training of new soldiers in the 1st Azov Corps. Later that year, Foreign Policy reviewed 2000 Meters to Andriivka, “A War Film to Change All War Films,” and Tkalych reconnected with his friend Alexey Levkin at “Yule Night.”

In October, “She” premiered at the Tate Modern art gallery in London, and there was also a screening of “Made in Ukraine,” with the support of the Ukrainian embassy. Hatred Battalion medic Sophia Yanchevska, a friend of the neo-Nazi Veteran Corps leader Yan Klishayev, attended this event and made it to the BBC News studio for an interview. Yanchevska soon appeared on a billboard advertisement for the 3rd Army Corps. “She” is dedicated to 3rd Assault Brigade medic Valentyna “Valkyria” Nahorna, a M8L8TH fan featured in the film who did not live to see it. Ukrainian AP journalist Alex Babenko, one of the creators of 2000 Meters, once wrote a fluff piece about “Valkyria” and her neo-Nazi boyfriend “Berserk” “who fell in love on the frontline and died together in a Russian shell attack.”

“She” premiered days after CBC News in Canada published a surprisingly scandalous video report by Ben Makuch, “How Russia is recruiting civilians into its shadow war.” Makuch is a national security reporter who has written numerous articles for The Guardian about “The Base,” a neo-Nazi group from the United States. He has also written about the proliferation of “active clubs” (so-called “white supremacy 3.0”), and the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is “undeniably affiliated with the far right,” as well as the connections between these topics. In 2023, Makuch appeared on Democracy Now! alongside journalist Lev Golinkin to discuss “The Whitewashing of Neo-Nazis … How Far Right is Exploiting Ukraine War.” Nevertheless…

Last autumn, Makuch visited a training base of the “elite” 3rd Assault Brigade and interviewed a burly Azovite for CBC News, without acknowledging his clearly visible neo-Nazi tattoos or even the “controversial past” of the unit. We see a couple billboards in Kyiv featuring the “White Fuhrer” Andriy Biletsky, but he is not mentioned, this is only B-roll footage. After Twitter/X user “Emo Morales” posted a screenshot of the interview which went viral, CBC News simply censored the most obvious swastika tattoo. Golinkin wrote about this for The Nation: “Canadian Government Media Blurs Out the Swastika on a Ukrainian Soldier.”

The CBC didn’t appear to be concerned that interviewing a man tattooed with neo-Nazi iconography is being legitimized—only that the “offensive” material is kept from the public. This literally Orwellian action by Canada’s government media is indicative of the country’s relationship to both neo-Nazis and their World War II predecessors. The dark reality lurking beneath the placid demeanor of America’s northern neighbor is that Canada’s institutions have spent decades protecting fascists and sweeping evidence under the rug. Canada’s elites guard this bloodstained legacy to this day.

A few days later, the HUR International Legion published a trailer for “Killhouse,” an upcoming movie, said to be “Ukraine’s first-ever tactical action film,” which apparently includes the RDK commander Denis Kapustin among the cast members. As told by United24 Media, it was produced “in collaboration with Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Third Separate Assault Brigade, and defense industry specialists.” The Ukrainian filmmaker Lubomyr Levistky seems to think the Azovites will help him realize his dream of becoming the Michael Bay of Ukraine. His previous film, “We Were Recruits,” also starred the 3rd Assault Brigade.

Levitsky appears to have named his latest movie after the 3rd Assault Brigade’s “Killhouse Academy.” In February of last year, “We Were Recruits” premiered in Washington, where he presented a “concept teaser” for “Killhouse” alongside some neo-Nazis from the 3rd Assault Brigade. That included Vladyslav Sobolevsky, a deputy commander of the unit. Sobolevsky soon launched Snake Island Institute (SII), an Azovite think tank that helps to promote Killhouse Academy and make inroads for Ukraine’s most powerful neo-Nazis in NATO countries. The SII leadership organized that trip to DC for Levitsky, and they also got roles in “Killhouse.” They were probably among the “defense industry specialists” who helped to make the film.

According to Green Flag Ventures (GFV), it is the “leading US-based VC in Ukraine’s dual-use, defense, AI, and cyber early-stage product startups with global market potential.” It is one of the companies that Snake Island Institute recently thanked for having “worked alongside us this year and made our projects possible.” GFV co-founder Deborah Fairlamb appears in “Killhouse,” and apparently so does Misha Rudominski, co-founder of “Himera,” one of the Ukrainian military startups in GFV’s investment portfolio.

Also in October, the German army (Bundeswehr) published a troubling propaganda video of its commander-in-chief Christian Freuding visiting the 45th Panzer Brigade stationed in Lithuania. “Is the resemblance to NS [National Socialist] aesthetics coincidental or intentional … ???” wondered Sevim Dağdelen, a former member of German parliament. Almut Rochowanski, a feminist activist and fellow at the Quincy Institute, commented on the video, “It’s all there: pounding choir soundtrack, flaming torches, German soldiers yelling ‘Hoorah’ in a forest.” Susann Witt-Stahl from the left-wing newspaper junge Welt suggested that Freuding “emulates Azov” with this “archaic warrior ritual in the glow of firelight.” Indeed, Freuding spent the 80th anniversary of the Nazis’ surrender at Killhouse Academy last year.

Closing out 2025, Germany’s Der Spiegel published a fawning article about “The Survivor” Oleksandr Ivantsov, who once advised his friends to “be careful!” when visiting Auschwitz, and only after reading what Holocaust deniers have to say about it. The New York Times covered Ivantsov’s story in December 2023 (“He Was Ready to Die, but Not to Surrender”), and a month later The Guardian published an “exclusive” by Luke Harding on his “Escape from Mariupol: how one Ukrainian soldier fled the Azovstal steelworks against the odds.” Ivantsov, who co-stars in “We Were Recruits,” accompanied Lubomyr Levitsky and the SII leadership to Washington just over a year ago. Zelensky decreed him a “Hero of Ukraine” in June. Since then, the “remarkable” Ivantsov wrote an “extraordinary memoir,” says the famous British journalist Luke Harding, who attended the book launch in November. Ivantsov drew the symbol of the Azov movement in Harding’s copy. According to Der Spiegel,

As a teenager, he [Ivantsov] was a fan of the football club FC Zorya Luhansk and met a group of “ultras” on the bus: supporters who fought with the opposing team after matches. Some were shaved, wore white shoelaces, and glorified Hitler. Ivantsov says he doesn’t share these ideas and has “nothing to do” with Hitler. But to this day, he describes himself as a nationalist and—like some other Ukrainians—isn't bothered by far-right tendencies. Back then, Ivantsov found the ultras exciting; he sensed an adventure. He became one of them and traveled to the games—and the fights.

Vladyslav Datsky, a commander in the 3rd Assault Brigade, also co-starred in “We Were Recruits.” For New Year’s, he took a picture of himself with an African Russian POW holding a banana. Later the 3rd Assault Brigade published a video of the “interview,” titled “Black Humor with Datsyk.” In the meantime, Zelensky’s tech guru Mykhailo Fedorov became the new Minister of Defense. Fedorov, the godfather of United24 Media, previously helped to unblock the Azovites (in particular the NGU Azov Brigade) from Facebook and Instagram as the Minister of Digital Transformation. After his latest appointment, the command of the 1st Azov Corps joined a newly established Digital Logistics Management System, and the Ministry of Defense launched “a secure environment designed to train and test artificial intelligence models using real-world battlefield data” with Palantir. Surely Fedorov is just the man to turn the war around.

In January, amidst power outages in Ukraine, the 3rd Army Corps and Azovite “Veteran Corps” sensed a PR opportunity and started to deploy food trucks with phone-charging stations. United24 Media naturally obliged them. Azov veterans told grateful Ukrainians about their beloved leader Andriy Biletsky who inspires them to “develop a healthy, strong nation.” Energoatom, the largest producer of electricity in Ukraine, just so happens to be a proud supporter of the 3rd Army Corps, which has received over 600 million UAH (~$14.4 million USD) from this state-owned nuclear energy company.

At the end of the month, the Zelensky government’s Ukrainian Cultural Foundation launched “a collaboration for a new grant program” with the 12th Azov Brigade to support “cultural and artistic projects dedicated to the war.” The head of the state agency noted that they signed a similar agreement with the 3rd Assault Brigade a year earlier. Centuria also hosted a book presentation, “Natiocracy 2.0,” featuring an ideologue of the 1990s Social-National Party of Ukraine. (This was the original neo-Nazi party in post-Soviet Ukraine. “Natiocracy,” borrowed from the 1930s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, is what the Azovites call the dictatorship they plan to establish.) Meanwhile, the New York Post ran a story on the Snake Island Institute’s Viktoria Honcharuk, “From Wall Street to war: How a Big Apple banker traded her dream life in finance for the front lines of Ukraine’s bloody battle with Russia.” The SII has collaborated with Centuria. Honcharuk soon visited London, where she also used to live, and appeared on Sky News and Times Radio.

In February, the 3rd Assault Brigade released an energy drink, and enlisted one of its neo-Nazi commanders “Procent” for the AI advertising campaign. He used to have an “88” in his Instagram username. “Procent” is associated with a neo-Nazi brand which sells KKK and Hitler patches. Later that month, 2000 Meters to Andriivka won the George Polk Award for Foreign Television Reporting.

In March, an Instagram account associated with the Ministry of Defense’s “Army TV” informed its followers about the “Prayer of the Ukrainian Nationalist” which an OUN leader wrote 90 years ago and the Azovites made one of their “sacred texts” to perform as a call-and-response chant. “This Prayer continues to ring in the modern military,” it was said — as if this is simply a patriotic tradition. According to Azovite ideologist Oleksiy Rains, “Initially, this was done exclusively in AZOV [the NGU unit], but today the tradition has spread across a variety of communities, from military units to civic organizations and beyond.”

Heroization and Azovization

As Zelensky handed the “Hero of Ukraine” award to neo-Nazi 1st Azov Corps officer Denis “Byk” Tkalych at the start of October, the 3rd Army Corps announced that its commander Andriy Biletsky was made a brigadier general. Before the establishment of the 3rd Army Corps in March 2025, Biletsky led the 3rd Assault Brigade. Especially since becoming a general, the “White Fuhrer” has overseen the “Azovization” of the rest of the 3rd Army Corps. Events in Ukraine cited a report from Strana:

“As soon as we were absorbed, the new command informed us that all commanders, from battalion commanders to brigade commanders, would undergo personnel checks. It was stated that the criterion would primarily be the combat effectiveness of the attached brigades. However, in reality, all the officers in these units understood that this was about freeing up positions for Biletsky’s cadres from the 3rd Brigade, as well as for those who were ready to obey them unquestioningly. Those who were too independent or had patrons from Syrsky’s entourage immediately fell into disfavor. In the summer of 2025, a ‘drift’ began - many commanders of the attached brigades were transferred to other units, realizing that those who had long been close to Biletsky would take their positions. Some officers were directly forced to transfer. Those who did not understand the hints and did not transfer were then thrown into the most difficult sections of the front. With the ensuing consequences - if the unit lost ground, they were immediately removed from their positions,” a major of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who previously served in one of the brigades “annexed” to the Third Corps, told Strana.

Take for example the 60th Mechanized Brigade. Just days later in October, General Biletsky appointed its new commander, Dmytro Rohozyuk, a former Centuria “legionnaire” and leader of the “Vinnytsia Ultras.” Rohozyuk previously served in the 3rd Assault Brigade as the deputy commander of its 1st Assault Battalion, which originated in the Special Operations Forces Azov-Kyiv Regiment. His former superior, Volodymyr Fokin, was then appointed to command the 125th Heavy Mechanized Brigade. Peter Korotaev (Events in Ukraine) reported, “Fokin immediately declared the start of a personnel purge, leading to a number of officers being sent on frontline assaults as infantrymen.”

Of the brigades “annexed” to the 3rd Army Corps, the 60th might be the most heavily transformed so far. The 60th Mechanized Brigade now includes the neo-Nazi “German Volunteer Corps,” and the Azovite drone battalion “Fatum,” one of the units associated with Killhouse Academy. “Dynamo hooligans are leading two linear battalions within the 3rd Army Corps,” the Dynamo Ultras boasted in November, hinting they meant the 60th brigade. Its 3rd Mechanized Battalion was formed on the basis of the former 97th Mechanized Battalion. According to “MilitaryLand,” this unit “effectively ceased to exist due to heavy losses sustained during the battle of Bakhmut. However, on September 26, 2023, the battalion was recreated from scratch on the basis of Azov-Kharkiv,” another Azovite special forces unit from 2022.

The symbol of the 3rd Mechanized Battalion is a Scythian dagger, and “our god is our weapon!” Andriy Malkov, a former “Dynamo hooligan” and co-organizer of the far-right “Nation Europa” conference in 2024, who I wrote about later that year, likely commands this unit in the 60th brigade. Previously there were hints that he served in the Fatum unit. In any case, Malkov recently presided over an Azovite ceremony for the 3rd battalion that featured the neo-Nazi band “Nezhegol,” which performed at Yule Night. The online “Encyclopaedia Metallum” lists the themes of Nezhegol’s music: “Nature, Heritage, Aryanism, Heathenism, National Socialism, Paganism.” On the evening of the spring equinox, the Nazi pagan Malkov made a video of a spinning fire-wheel next to a waving banner of the 60th Mechanized Brigade.

The Azovization of the 3rd Army Corps exposes the wishful thinking of so-called “experts” who predicted the inevitable dilution of far-right military units back in 2022. Relatively normal people may have swelled the ranks of the 12th Azov Brigade and 1st Azov Corps in the National Guard, but the old guard remains in control, with an ideological service named after the 1930s OUN leader who coined “Natiocracy.” The NGU Azovites also have a youth group, “Rukh404,” filled with M8L8TH fans. The openly neo-Nazi “Neptune” squad in the Azov Brigade (in particular “Bolgar” and “Byk”) took over the training battalion of the 1st Azov Corps. The head of recruitment for the entire corps is also a neo-Nazi, but more about him later.

In early November, after awarding more Azovites at the top of the month, Zelensky visited command posts for the 1st Azov Corps and the Nazi-infested Rubizh Brigade, which is part of the National Guard’s 2nd Khartia Corps. I wrote about this and the famous Khartia Corps last year, which has a nationalist ideological service, inspired by the Azovites. A few days later, Khartia hosted a NATO delegation. In the meantime, representatives of the 3rd Army Corps, Snake Island Institute, and the Kyiv City Council commissioner for veterans affairs Stanislav Ryzhenkov attended the unveiling of a memorial in the Ukrainian capital dedicated to the 2nd Assault Battalion of the 3rd Assault Brigade and its numerous units with neo-Nazi emblems, such as the “Dirlewanger” company.

Ryzhenkov apparently quoted Biletsky in his speech. Later that month, he joined a working group on forming a 2026 calendar of youth projects and events in Kyiv, and an NGU Azovite source boasted that “Azov is Helping Reform School Education in Ukraine.” According to “Azov Insider,” “As part of the reform of the ‘Defense of Ukraine’ curriculum initiated by the Ministry of Education and Science, service members of the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov have joined the creation of training hubs and teacher instruction.” The education ministry later published a video starring “Hero of Ukraine” Lev Pashko, now the chief of staff of the Azov Brigade, as part of a series “about people who fill the subject ‘Defense of Ukraine’ with real content.”

The prominent Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak, a professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, named three “national figures” that could replace Volodymyr Zelensky: the former commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, the HUR spymaster Kyrylo Budanov, and the Nazi general Andriy Biletsky. Since then a poll came out which suggested that a party led by Biletsky would come in 3rd place in a parliamentary election, besting Zelensky and Budanov, but still behind Zaluzhny and the former president Poroshenko.

Budanov soon praised Biletsky as “a figure who inspires young people: the power of words and weapons, nobility, responsibility for people, the will to fight, results on the battlefield that give confidence in the victory of good over evil.” At the end of November, Ukrainska Pravda unveiled its annual “UP100 list” of “Ukrainians who are shaping the independence and future of the country today.” The Defenders category included Andriy Biletsky, Kyrylo Budanov, Oleksandr Ivantsov, the NGU Azov Corps commander Denys Prokopenko, and Kharita Corps commander Ihor Obolensky.

Standing next to Stanislav Ryzhenkov at an event in early December, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko made a fist and put it over his heart, mirroring an Azovite gesture which is becoming increasingly widespread in the Ukrainian military. On the next day, Klitschko delivered 10,000 drones and 20 UGVs to Killhouse Academy for the 3rd Army Corps. The “White Fuhrer” greeted the mayor. According to Klitschko, “This year [2025], Kyiv has provided the corps’ soldiers with nearly 20,000 UAVs [drones]—including today’s shipment—and a modern mobile training school [for Killhouse] … Since the beginning of the year, Kyiv has allocated 1.3 billion hryvnias [~30 million USD] from the city budget to the 3rd Corps for equipment.”

Around that time, Zelensky awarded an apartment to an ideological officer in the 3rd Assault Brigade who served in the Hyrdra platoon that starred in 2000 Meters to Andriivka and received a standing ovation at one of its screenings in Ukraine. Also, Killhouse Academy quietly partnered with the Finnish-Ukrainian company Double Tap Investments (DTI), which is “committed to invest in Ukrainian defense technology startups.” According to DTI, “we’re bringing this combat-tested experience [Killhouse Academy] to Finland and beyond.”

The upcoming Killhouse Academy Finland program will train not only drone pilots but also engineers, mechanics, and support specialists — building the ecosystem of skills Europe needs to meet new security challenges. … This initiative is more than a training program. It’s a bridge — connecting Ukrainian battlefield innovation with European defense readiness.

“The point of the partnership is to develop the project in other countries,” says DTI co-founder Oles Khudoba, the former “head of finance and partnership” for the Ukrainian government’s “Brave1” platform designed “to establish a strong DefenseTech industry in Ukraine.” DTI’s CEO Jan-Erik Saarinen, a former Brave1 advisor from Helsinki, soon presented the Killhouse program at Finland’s DECOI 2025, or “Defense Ecosystem of Innovators” event. Meanwhile, the 3rd Army Corps struck a deal with the Munich-based Circus Group, “the leading AI robotics company, specializing in the translation of the fine art of cooking into full autonomy.”

Readers may recall that Biletsky’s former press secretary Oleksandr Alfyorov, who led the ideological service of his 3rd Assault Brigade, took over the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM) last summer. A decade earlier, he attended the launch of a neo-Nazi “Russian Center” in Kyiv. Poland also elected a former football hooligan and nationalist historian as president, Karol Nawrocki, who previously led the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (2021-25). Alfyorov met Nawrocki when he visited Kyiv in December. Zelensky apparently considers Biletsky’s man to be part of the team. A few days later, Alfyorov presented an award to the First Lady of Ukraine on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Kicking off 2026, Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote for the Financial Times that “it has been military units like Khartia and the 3rd Assault Brigade that have transformed the methods and morale of the Ukrainian military and made it a world leader in technological innovation and tactical agility.” At the Institute of Biology and Medicine of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, a medic from the 3rd Army Corps participated in a winter course as a guest lecturer. Later the psychological service of the 12th Azov Brigade held an event with the Kyiv School of Economics about creating a “veteran-oriented society.”

Lieutenant Colonel Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the 1st Azov Corps, and another “Hero of Ukraine,” signed a memorandum of cooperation with the head of the Ministry of Defense’s National Army Academy (NAA) in mid-January. According to the prestigious NAA, “For over six months now, the khorunza [ideological] service of the 1st Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine ‘Azov’ has been holding meetings with cadets … These include lectures on military history, discussions about tradition and modernity, our values, and the reasons for the war.”

Lecturers from the NGU Azov ideological service include Ivan Patrilyak, the Banderite dean of history at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The NAA said the memorandum simply “formalized” their cooperation, which “involves conducting joint educational and scientific events, meetings, lectures, and discussions aimed at developing the necessary qualities in future officers.”

In 2021, the journalist Oleksiy Kuzmenko authored a report about Azovite infiltration of the NAA, “Ukraine’s premier military education institution and a major hub for Western military assistance to the country.” This story focused on “Centuria,” but not the same organization that I’ve mentioned throughout this article. Kuzmenko wrote that since 2018, the NAA became the home to “a self-described order of ‘European traditionalist’ military officers that has the stated goals of reshaping the country’s military along right-wing ideological lines and defending the ‘cultural and ethnic identity’ of European peoples against ‘Brussels’ politicos and bureaucrats.’”

The group envisions a future where “European right forces are consolidated and national traditionalism is established as the disciplining ideological basis for the European peoples.” … The group has been able to proselytize Ukraine’s future military elite inside the NAA. Apparent members have also gained access to Western military education and training Institutions. One apparent member of the group, then NAA cadet Kyrylo Dubrovskyi [who is now an officer in the 12th Azov Brigade], attended an 11-month Officer Training Course at the United Kingdom’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, graduating in late 2020. During that time, Dubrovskyi apparently maintained ties to the group. Another apparent member and then NAA cadet, Vladyslav Vintergoller, attended the 30th International Week held by the German Army Officers’ Academy (Die Offizierschule des Heeres, OSH) in Dresden, Germany, in April 2019. Meanwhile, inside Ukraine, members of the group have apparently had access to American military trainers, as well as American and French cadets. As recently as April 2021, the group claimed that since its launch, members have participated in joint military exercises with France, the UK, Canada, the US, Germany, and Poland.

To avoid confusion with the other Centuria, we’ll call this NAA-connected group the Centuria Military Order (CMO). In 2020-21, Kuzmenko writes, the NAA denied the existence of the CMO. Meanwhile, he identified an NAA cadet and Azov veteran Yuriy “Milan” Havrylyshyn as one of the leaders of the group, and found a video of Havrylyshyn wearing a “White Pride World Wide” shirt. Despite western media picking up on Kuzmenko’s research, “Milan” is now the head of recruitment for the 1st Azov Corps, after serving in the 3rd Assault Brigade. At some point, Havrylyshyn founded “Slon FM” (apparently CMO 2.0) which is described as “a cadet-officer community with the goal of reforming Ukrainian military higher education.”

Also in January, the ideological service of the 3rd Assault Brigade celebrated the anniversary of the defunct neo-Nazi organization “Patriot of Ukraine,” and British politician Jack Lopresti (former deputy head of the Conservative Party) announced that he’s joined the 12th Azov Brigade, just a few days before it paid homage to one of its dead neo-Nazi commanders, Oleg Mudrak. Zelensky also held an awards ceremony for veterans who represented Ukraine at the “Invictus Games” in 2023-25. That included the 2025 team captain Oleksiy Tiunin from the 3rd Assault Brigade who is now part of the Veteran Corps and models for the neo-Nazi brand “Svastone.” In 2024, he golfed at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C.

In mid-February, cadets from the national academy of the Security Service of Ukraine took part in a “pistol-handling exercise” led by NGU Azov officer David “Chemist” Kasatkin at his “Rukh404” facility. Kasatkin, a deputy commander of the 12th Azov Brigade’s sniper detachment, has over 550,000 followers across Instagram, Tiktok, and Telegram. He founded the “Rukh404” youth group. Before joining Azov, “Chemist” led the straight-edge “Teivaz project” in Mariupol, named after a runic symbol “used to denote a continuation of the ‘struggle and victory’ of Nazi Germany.” With a neo-Nazi hat from “Svastone,” and a comrade behind the camera, he harassed and intimidated people who dared to drink or smoke in public.

A couple days before the 4th anniversary of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress held a large protest in Toronto. A flag of the 3rd Assault Brigade waved in the audience. It might as well be an unspoken rule in the Ukrainian diaspora that no patriotic demonstration is complete without at least one red and black (Banderite) flag. At some point since 2022, it seems you cannot have a Ukrainian rally in the United States, Canada, Europe, or Australia without a “Free Azov” sign or some other show of support for Ukraine’s most powerful neo-Nazis. The “Azovization” of the Ukrainian diaspora is also on the horizon.

In the run up to the anniversary, the retired US general and former CIA director David Petraeus commended the Azovite think tank, Snake Island Institute. At this point no “Azov Lobby Review” is complete without Petraeus. According to him, the SII is “an independent Ukrainian defense analytics and coordination center with whose leaders I met with in recent weeks in both Kyiv and Munich.” Dominic Ventimiglia of Squad Ventures, a DC-based venture capital firm focused on Ukraine, also praised the SII as a “Ukrainian think tank on steroids!! ‘IMPRESSIVE!!!’ … [and] an organization that is quietly becoming one of the most important bridges between Ukrainian frontline experience and Western strategic thinking.” Jim Dolbow, national security advisor to U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (GA-R), commented, “Agree 1000% about Snake Island Institute!”

Neo-Nazi-Led Think Tank Gets Warm Welcome in Washington

Moss Robeson

·

November 3, 2025

Read full story

By the end of February, NGU Azov commander Denys Prokopenko became a brigadier general; “khorunzi” from his ideological service lectured at the Odessa military academy; the fundraising unit of the Azov Brigade got a new “International Partnerships Lead” (who used to work with USAID and a German equivalent, GIZ); and the National Academy of Internal Affairs hosted a meeting between the 1st Azov Corps and the 2025 laureates of a scientific state prize that Zelensky established (the Boris Paton National Prize of Ukraine).

The Minister of Internal Affairs also ordered the Lyceum of Security Direction and National-Patriotic Education in Vinnytsia to be named after the famous Azov fighter Nazarii “Grenka” Hryntsevych. “Grenka” was a Centuria legionnaire and the youngest “Azovstal defender” in 2022, who was released in a POW exchange along with Prokopenko. In 2023, he founded the well-known “Kontakt-12” unit in the Azov Brigade. In 2024, Hryntesyvch died, and Zelensky posthumously declared him a “Hero of Ukraine,” while in Germany, Ukrainian fans unfurled a huge banner of “Grenka” at the UEFA European Football Championship.

Around the turn of the month, the Hitler-tattooed Centuria leader Dmitriy Krukovsky took part in an awards ceremony for the 53rd Mechanized Brigade in the 3rd Army Corps. Centuria’s founder Ihor Mykhailenko, the second commander of the NGU Azov Regiment after Biletsky, soon took over the 53rd brigade. Krukovsky posted something about being in the 1st Mechanized Battalion of this unit, followed by an image of bullets in the shape of a swastika.

Vladyslav Dutchak, a leader of the ideological service of the 1st Azov Corps, lectured at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and the Military Institute of Taras Shevchenko National University in early March. Then Zelensky visited the command of the 1st Azov Corps again, followed by a meeting at the Office of the President with “Hero of Ukraine” General Prokopenko. The NGU Azov commander was once a football hooligan with the neo-Nazi “Albatros” ultras affiliated with the “White Boys Club.” In 2019, Prokopenko refused to salute the newly elected President Zelensky, but look at him now.

For Volunteer Day (March 14), Ukraine’s “memory czar” Oleksandr Alfyorov visited “Halt,” an Azovite military social hub in the capital. He spoke about the main ideologist of the Azov movement, Mykola “Kruk” Kravchenko, who died early in the war. Alfyorov wore a jacket from 2014 with a patch of the neo-Nazi “Black Corps” that formed the Azov Battalion. “The Black Corps” (Das Schwarze Korps) was the newspaper of the SS and a nickname for that Nazi paramilitary organization.

In 2024, as the head of the ideological service of the 3rd Assault Brigade, Alfyorov organized a conference on “real reforms of the humanitarian [ideological] sphere in the military,” and met with the Parliamentary National Security and Defense Committee to discuss “humanitarian [ideological] reforms.” The Azov-inspired ideological service of the National Guard’s 2nd Khartia Corps took part in both meetings.

Last month, the 3rd Army Corps and Khartia signed a memorandum of cooperation on the development of joint training programs for the Ukrainian army. Apparently this means scaling up the Azov movement’s Yevhen Konovalets Military School, named for the founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. According to the information agency of the Ministry of Defense, this is “a systemic step to turn combat experience into training standards that can be implemented across the entire Ukrainian army.”

Conferences (Davos—Kyiv—London—DC)

The 2025 UK Conservative Party Conference took place in Manchester in early October. It included a “Conservative Friends of Ukraine” event with NGU Azov Brigade ideological officer Volodymyr Vernyhora and the Conservative shadow defense secretary James Cartlidge. This is one of the Azovites who met Boris Johnson in London a couple years back.

Jack Lopresti, the former deputy head of the party soon to join the Azov Brigade, was also there. Conservative MP Iain Duncan said he was “honored to share the platform” with Vernyhora. One British columnist, Mark Wallace, insisted that Vernyhora gave “the best speech I heard this week - indeed one of the best I’ve ever heard.” British MPs also applauded Vernyhora in 2024, when he participated in a roundtable discussion in the UK Parliament about Azov POWs.

Later that month, two events took place simultaneously in Kyiv: the 2025 Ukrainian Women’s Congress, and a “Man in the Army” conference. The guest of honor of the Ukrainian Women’s Congress, supported by the EU, Japan, UN, the US-funded National Democratic Institute, and the Heinrich Boll Foundation (affiliated with the German Green party), was Tetiana Tepliuk, a 73-year-old medic in the Azov Brigade.

Tepiuk joined the Azov Regiment in 2015, when it was still an openly neo-Nazi unit. She survived the siege of Mariupol and Russian captivity, and then returned to the Azov Brigade. For her dedicated service to aiding neo-Nazis, Tepiuk received the 2025 Congress Award for Outstanding Achievements in Women’s Leadership. The “grandmother” of Azov received multiple standing ovations at this event, which the First Lady Olena Zelenska and HUR chief Kyrylo Budanov addressed remotely.

Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the 1st Azov Corps, gave a speech about his unit’s “motivation system” at the “Man in the Army” conference, supported by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and Military Ombudsman. Half an hour earlier, two panel discussions concluded, one featuring Rostyslav Nyzytsky, the fascist deputy commander of the Yevhen Konovalets Military School, who appears to have left the Azov Brigade. “Our task is to form the backbone” of Ukraine, he once said in 2023. “One hundred percent gentle Azovization.”

The other panel discussion included founders of “Slon FM” and “Company Group Team,” another Azovite project cultivating an influential brand and “military community.” Yuriy Havrylyshyn, the head of recruitment for the 1st Azov Corps, appeared with his Slon FM sidekick Ivan Halenko, the deputy commander of a drone unit in the Azov Brigade. Halenko graduated from the CMO-infiltrated National Army Academy in 2024, and since then has exposed numerous scandals at Ukrainian military universities. He’s another one going around giving lectures at military educational institutes.

Their co-panelist Volodymyr Malyshevsky co-founded Company Group Team, which I’ve written about before, but I probably need to revisit this topic soon. Speaking of the “Special Branding Operation to Nazify Ukraine,” in mid-November, the major Ukrainian military brand M-TAC (owned by a blatant neo-Nazi) showcased at Milipol Paris, which describes itself as the “leading event for homeland security and safety, organized under the patronage of the French Ministry of Interior.”

Around then, the NGU Azov Brigade/Corps dispatched a delegation to the United States led by Nestor Barchuk, who I previously introduced as an amateur DJ and “NGO nepo baby who is happy to play the part of liberal Azov spokesperson.” He was accompanied by an older gentleman with a neo-Nazi (Black Sun) elbow tattoo who apparently has a very “Ukrainian” sense of humor. For Christmas one year, he posted an image of a Nazi Santa Claus with an Azov patch. The “depoliticized” Azovites, “they’re not sending their best,” as Trump once said about Mexico.

With representatives of the 1st Azov Corps touring the Ukrainian American community, the neo-Nazi publisher who runs the ideological service of its Lyubart Brigade (Marko Melnyk) organized the “Steel World Forum” in Kyiv, and the neo-Nazi commander of the ideological service of the 3rd Army Corps (Dmytro Kukharchuk) spoke at a “Global Leadership Summit,” also in the capital.

In November 2014, as the Azov Regiment joined the National Guard of Ukraine, it established an openly neo-Nazi magazine, “Black Sun” (Chorne Sotne), with Marko Melnyk as the editor-in-chief. In 2016, he retired from military service and founded his own publishing house connected to the Azov movement and other far-right groups such as the Kholodny Yar Historical Club. Melnyk returned to the National Guard last year, not long after the expansion of the 12th Azov Brigade and its 5th “Lyubart” battalion.

According to the pro-Azov website “Military Land,” the original Lyubart unit “was formed by Azov veterans and members of the Centuria movement from Volyn Oblast … during the first hours of the full-scale invasion.” This was one of the Azov movement’s units in the Special Operations Forces, but instead of consolidating in the 3rd Assault Brigade, it joined the Azov Brigade in 2024. Now the Lyubart Brigade includes a “Nachtigall Battalion,” which was also a Ukrainian unit formed by German military intelligence in 1941.

The Steel World Forum featured many speakers, from the Azov and Khartia Corps, the government, and elsewhere. Yaroslav Nitsoy, who led the far-right “Ukrainian Student” group at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2024-25, gave a lecture about national-patriotic education. In a recent article about Ukraine’s “military-patriotic” Dzhura games, I forgot to mention that after graduating, the Azov-friendly Nitsoy found employment in the Ukrainian State Center for National-Patriotic Education which oversees this nationalist competition.

Dmytro Kukharchuk, who commanded a battalion in the 3rd Assault Brigade, now directs the “Khorunza School” of the 3rd Army Corps. Kukharchuk is a former Sieg Heiling football hooligan who led the National Corps (Andriy Biletsky’s political party) in Cherkasy, central Ukraine. He apparently despises what Events in Ukraine describes as the “liberal-aligned” leadership of the 1st Azov Corps. “We can talk about corruption, we can talk about war, we can talk about crime—all of these things have causes,” Kukharchuk said at the “Global Leadership Summit,” a conservative Christian event in Kyiv. “And the main reason for this is a lack of spirit.”

Azovites once again starred at the Kyiv Youth Security Forum in early December. This annual event, supported by NATO, is organized by the foundation of the former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk (2014-16) which counts NATO, the Atlantic Council, and the Ukrainian Women’s Congress among its partners. Killhouse Academy and Ukrainian military technology companies showcased at the forum.

• Panel 1: Mykyta “Raz-Dva” Nadtochiy, another neo-Nazi deputy commander of the 1st Azov Corps, shared the stage with Mykola “Makar” Zinkevich, the neo-Nazi commander of the 3rd Assault Brigade’s star UGV unit “NC13,” and a drone operator from the Kraken 1654 regiment.

• Panel 3: “Boche,” the head of R&D for the 3rd Army Corps’ anti-aircraft regiment, and “Zozulia” from the R&D division of the 1st Azov Corps appeared alongside the managing director of the Munich-based technology company “Quantum Systems,” among others.

• Panel 4: Vitali Klychko, the mayor of Kyiv, made a speech before panelists took the stage, such as Olena Tolkachova, the head of the “Angels” patronage service of the 3rd Army Corps. Tolkachova might appear to be a benevolent member of the Azov movement, but she was married to its chief ideologist Mykola Kravchenko, and now appears to be involved in the Veteran Corps.

• Panel 5: The final panelists included Maryna Hrytsenko, executive director of Snake Island Institute, and Viktoria Kovach, the head of the 3rd Army Corps’ medical service.

Also in December, the Ukrainian “anti-corruption” NGO “ANTS” held a “Veterans Forum” featuring Stanislav Ryzhenkov, the Azov veteran turned Kyiv City Council commissioner for veterans affairs, and Yan Klishayev, the neo-Nazi leader of the newly established Veteran Corps. ANTS leader Hanna Hopko, a prominent representative of Ukrainian “civil society,” had recently visited Japan and Korea with NGU Azov ideological officer Volodymyr Vernyhora. Soon she interviewed Olena Semenyaka, the “international secretary” of the National Corps, and one of the “intellectual” Azovites who dreams of a Nazi International.

In January, at the invitation of the British ambassador to Ukraine, the Azovite memory czar Oleksandr Alfyorov spoke at a conference in Kyiv dedicated to the one year anniversary of Ukraine signing a “100 year strategic partnership” with the UK. According to the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM), “We would like to remind you that in November 2025, as part of a cooperation between the two countries, the Chairman of the UINM [Alfyorov] spoke at Queen’s University Belfast as part of the ‘Ukrainian Week in the United Kingdom 2025.’”

At least a couple Azovites made it to this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. In addition to the annual “Ukraine House,” the foundation of the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk presented an exhibition and discussion program “Ukraine: Future’s Frontline.” That included a panel discussion, moderated by an editorial board member of the Financial Times, between the director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, and Kyrylo Berkal, the deputy commander of the 3rd Army Corps responsible for training.

Some hail Berkal, who Sieg Heils the Slavic god of war, as “The Man Shaping the Army of the Future.” He joined another panel discussion hosted by the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation, and echoed its theme, saying there is “only one solution: change or die.” During the “Davos Ukrainian Breakfast,” Yuriy Filatov, the head of unmanned systems for the 3rd Army Corps, sat at Pinchuk’s table, just next to the stage.

A few steps away from Filatov, two moderators including CNN host Fareed Zakaria led a panel discussion with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics, Finnish president Alexander Stubb, Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof, and Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenković. Toward the end, Zakaria introduced Yuriy Filatov, who got up and spoke for several minutes. The 3rd Army Corps, he said, is “the corps that is larger than average European army, the corps that is holding 200 kilometers of frontline, and which is destroying 1,000 enemies per week. And from this perspective, I have a couple advices.”

Just accept the reality, the new reality that international law doesn’t work. … Unfortunately, I don’t really believe in deals, because deals are kind of rational, but also they are not, so please accept this.

Fareed Zakaria had to excuse himself to chair another session with the Israeli president, so his co-moderator Zanny Minton Beddoes from England, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, took over and thanked Filatov for his “powerful intervention” and “extremely powerful point: Ukraine is already protecting European security.” Beddoes then introduced U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (NC-R), who insisted on another standing ovation for the Ukrainian “heroes” in the room.

In the last week of January, the US-Ukraine venture capital firm “MITS Capital” teamed up with the 1st Azov Corps for a flashy military technology conference at Kyiv’s WW2 museum. I first wrote about the WW3-mongering MITS Capital warming up to the Azovites in 2024. Its U.S. co-founder Perry Boyle said their event was “a unique opportunity for military and commercial attaches, diplomats, NATO military personnel and investors to hear directly from one of the most fearsome fighting forces in history.” Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Corps, was not present but delivered an introductory speech, and retired Canadian lieutenant general Trevor Cadieu moderated a panel discussion with Prokopenko’s deputy Mykyta Nadtochiy. The commander of the National Guard also made a speech.

In the first week of February, at least a couple Azovites from the National Guard attended the annual “Ukrainian Prayer Breakfast” in Washington. On the next day, the so-called “Christian Taliban” (Bratstvo, or “Brotherhood”) in Ukraine hosted a “Right Conference” attended by Azovites and others. Bohdan Korchysnky, the head of the Bratstvo movement, wants to establish a far-right theocracy. Pagan Azovites probably won’t go for that, but Korchynsky commands respect as a longtime far-right leader in Ukraine going back to the 1990s. More importantly, his movement has a celebrated battalion in the HUR’s elite Tymur Special Unit, which includes the Russian Volunteer Corps. According to its commander, Oleksiy “Borghese” Seredyuk,

Those who fight against the TCK [Territorial Centers of Recruitment—mobilization offices], criticize, comment, obstruct, or spread relevant content on the internet (and thus disrupt mobilization) are enemies of Ukraine and more dangerous than a Russian soldier. At least I can shoot at the latter. … We all understand that at a critical moment (unfortunately, it will come), the task of mobilization will be carried out by combat battalions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (as has happened more than once in history). I will laugh wholeheartedly. … Personally, our [Bratstvo] battalion, in the frontline zone where we are currently operating, dragged all draft evaders out of their homes along the way.

Events in Ukraine reported, “The official Facebook page of the Kyiv oblast TCK shared Borghese’s text, titling it with the quote ‘Those that are against the TCK are enemies of Ukraine’. They ended up deleting the post.” Anyway, the “Right Conference” had a few speakers from the 3rd Army Corps. “It’s time for us, the military, to start helping the enlistment offices [TCK] catch that whole pack of draft-dodging scum,” said Yevhen Vryadnyk, who is a co-founder of the Azovite publishing house “Plomin,” and the leader of “Avangard,” a group associated with the Hatred Battalion. According to Marta Havryshko, he “suggested mobilizing the youth wings of Azov, Right Sector, Bratstvo and other far-right organizations for the task.”

Dmytro Savchenko, the founder of the far-right publishing house “Zaliznyy Tato” (Iron Dad), was the deputy chief of staff of the Nazi-infested Right Sector movement’s “Da Vinci Wolves” battalion. Savchenko has said “it was difficult for me to accept” the addition of the “Gonor” (Honor) group to the battalion — former Azovites “who had a tarnished reputation within right-wing circles.” After the neo-Nazi hipsters from Gonor split the unit, Savchenko proposed for Right Sector’s remaining battalion to join the 3rd Assault Brigade. Instead, he became an officer in the 3rd Army Corps. According to Korchynsky, the principal author for “Zaliznyy Tato,” Savchenko called for “intensifying external propaganda (graffiti, stickers, social media) of the main #TCK_ULTRAS slogans; forming mobile groups of active citizens to neutralize the street thugs who hinder the mobilization efforts of #TCK_ZSU servicemen … [and] more pronounced intolerance toward those who speak Russian.”

Dmytro Kukharchuk, the deputy commander of the 3rd Army Corps responsible for its ideological service, also spoke at the conference. According to Marta Havryshko, he “scolded liberal, hedonism-infected Europe.” Since then, Kukharchuk has claimed that his Khorunza School is “growing and training others: sergeants and officers of the 21st Corps, the Joint Operations Command, and the Air Force Command—those who share our values and principles.”

Havryshko summarized the “Right Conference” in this way: “Representatives of elite HUR units—Bratstvo, Tradition and Order—along with units of the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] such as the Third Assault Brigade, Raid, and other far-right formations, spent five straight hours in central Kyiv under the watchful eye of Ukrainian security services and military intelligence explaining just how bad, weak, and feeble Europe supposedly is and how European men are ‘no longer men.’” She also warned of an emerging “alliance of the ultra-right and the draft officers in Ukraine.”

Days later, MITS Capital hosted another event, “The Secret Sauce of Ukraine’s Victory: The Rise of New Defense Tech.” The guest of honor was General Andriy Lebedenko, deputy commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. Bohdan Krotevych, the famous former chief of staff of the Azov Brigade, also spoke at the event. Last November, Leonid Ragozin said that Krotevych “threatens Zelensky with another Maidan if he keeps covering up his corrupt friends. Krotevych quit army service early this year [2025] to become a prolific political commentator.”

I already covered the Munich Security Conference, which took place in the coming days. In case you missed it, the neo-Nazi commander of the 3rd Assault Brigade’s “NC13” company of “ground-based systems” sat front and center at the Munich Security Breakfast with Viktoria Honcharuk from Snake Island Institute. Partnering with MITS Capital and others, SII held a private event on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference with David Petraeus and speakers from the 3rd Army Corps. Leonid Ragozin also wrote about the Azovites in Munich, and “the unholy alliance between Ukraine’s far right and the Western defence industry.”

At the end of May 2017, a group of far-right activists stormed Lviv region’s legislature and briefly detained its deputies inside the occupied building. They demanded amnesty for the veterans of the Russo-Ukrainian war who had been jailed for violent crimes inside and outside the war zone. Only one of the attackers was charged at the end of the day — Mykola “Makar” Zynkevich of the National Corps, the political wing of the Azov Movement, as its members themselves call their vast network of large military units and paramilitary groups.

Fast-forward seven years and the battle-hardened commander Zynkevich appears at a large event organised on the sides of the Munich Security Conference. Zynkevich’s unit deals with cutting edge war technology, namely terrestrial robotic systems which aid — and may one day replace — soldiers on the battlefield. The unit is called NC13, in which NC likely stands for Zynkevich’s political alma mater, National Corps. Number 13 is defined by the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist symbol Aryan Circle (A being the first and C being the third letter in the alphabet).

For the 4th anniversary of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian Society at Sheffield University in England held a conference featuring a former football hooligan as its guest of honor. “Django” is now the deputy commander of the 413th Raid Regiment, which supported the Right Conference earlier that month. Yevhen Karas, the notoriously neo-Nazi commander of this unit, was one of the main speakers at the Right Conference and remotely joined the event at Sheffield University. Karas is not associated with the Azov movement, but he led the neo-Nazi group “C14,” once a youth wing of the Svoboda party. In November, Karas spoke at Chatham House in London, and in December, Zelensky personally awarded him the “Cross of Military Merit.” The Ukrainian president established this distinction in 2022, based on the highest award of the 1940s Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Bratsvo leader Dmytro Korchysnky regretted that Ivan Zaliznyak from the Raid Regiment could not make it to his Right Conference, because “I wanted to hear the thoughts of my comrade and undisputed authority in the right-wing movement.” According to Events in Ukraine, Zaliznyak is “one the main voices calling to kill, beat and humiliate draft dodgers [ukhilyants].” This neo-Nazi has declared “war on ukhilyants, jihad on the indifferent,” and also joined the conference at Sheffield University via Zoom.

Sheffield University’s remote neo-Nazi speakers, Karas and Zaliznyak, both helped to ratchet up recent tensions between Ukraine and Hungary. On the day of the Right Conference, Karas also participated in the annual “Bandera Readings,” saying that “Russia is not our only enemy.” A clip of Karas at the 2022 Bandera Readings fantasizing about a full-scale war leading to the collapse of Russia went semi-viral before the invasion, but this year he raised the issue of “certain territorial issues from our other neighbors who will fear our strength.”

“What will Orbán do, this punk? Right now, the 128th brigade could reach there in two minutes.” The Hungarian prime minister’s political director shared the clip on Twitter/X, outraged that “a Zelenskyy-decorated Ukrainian army officer and leader of the neo-Nazi C14 group openly threatened Hungary with military invasion. This is intimidation against a sovereign NATO state. Hungary will not be blackmailed.” As for Zaliznyak, he soon issued an “action plan regarding Orbán and company.” Step four: “Deploy ten crews of the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces to the Hungarian border, equipped with strike capabilities of sufficient range to reach Budapest.”

In March, outside Utrecht in the Netherlands, the head of recruitment for the 1st Azov Corps addressed a human resources conference (“Back to the HR Future”) held by the Defense Support Command of the Dutch Ministry of Defense. As a reminder, the former CMO leader Yuriy Havrylyshyn previously served in the 3rd Assault Brigade, the same unit which alarmed the leading Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf in December. The headline read, “Dutch ex-soldier Hendrik candid about horrors on the Ukrainian front: ‘Every morning the Nazi salute was given.’”

The [3rd Assault Brigade] commander who received him assured him that all that [Nazi stuff] was a thing of the past. “This is not the Azov of the past,” he was told. “Azov has been reformed, purified, and rebuilt.” … Hendrik grabbed his bag, said he was leaving, and reported to the office to pick up his file. There, a confronting sight awaited him: Stepan Bandera flags, inverted swastikas, Nazi symbolism. “I didn’t want anything to do with this whole mess anymore. And I wasn’t the only one. A few other foreign guys had left too; they had seen teams where the Nazi salute was given every morning.”

A few days later, Kyiv hosted the second annual “Natsprotiv” (National Resistance) forum dedicated to “the development of a system of preparing citizens for national resistance.” The 3rd Army Corps and the “Resistance Movement” of the Special Operations Forces partnered with the official organizer of this Azovite production: the Kyiv Regional Center for Preparing the Population for National Resistance, which was established in 2024 at the initiative of the 3rd Assault Brigade and the Kyiv Regional Military Administration. The new Veteran Corps (VC) of the Azov movement seems to be associated with the Azovite-led “National Resistance Center.” Neo-Nazi VC leader Yan Klishayev took a photo at the conference with his friend, the Kyiv City Council commissioner for veterans affairs.

Iryna Vereshchuk, the deputy head of the Office of the President, introduced Andriy Biletsky at this event, which received support from Ukraine’s ministries of defense, education, and veterans affairs. She sat in the front row next to one of his deputy commanders, Maksym Zhorin. A former commander of the NGU Azov Regiment, Zhorin once presided over a Nazi pagan ceremony at the Azov base near Mariupol. Vereshchuk moderated a panel discussion with him and the head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration. Last October, Leonid Ragozin reported that Biletsky’s deputy “laments that Ukraine is not militarising society and especially young people as well as children the way Russia does - ‘without leftist fuckery’.” Another panel included the memory czar Oleksandr Alfyorov. Representatives of the National Academy of Internal Affairs also participated in the forum.

In the next 48 hours, Volodymyr Zelensky presented an award to Volodymyr Avdeyenko for Volunteer Day. Avdeyenko is the director of the Kyiv Regional Center for Preparing the Population for National Resistance. He is also the go-to model for the neo-Nazi brand “Svastone,” for example, to sell baseball caps with a “Flower of Perun” swastika presented in a Waffen SS shield on the front, and the number 14 on the back. A week later, he probably rejoiced at the 1488th day of war.