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Comment by dilap | Hacker News Reader

He's talking about the Azov battalion. From wikipedia:

> Azov Special Operations Detachment is a right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi unit of the National Guard of Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

Neo-nazis and hard-right nationalists were instrumental in the violent coup of the democratically-elected government in 2014, and have since taken positions in the replacement government.

I recommend this article for more background:

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

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I can step in, because I have personal experience with Azov.

As Jew, I was suspicious about Azov, because of Andrey Biletskiy, which looked like a Russian agent for me, so I took opportunity to visit Azov, when Civil Azov (volunteer organisation) asked for help in the end of 2014, because many Azov members wanted to visit home for Christmas after half of year at front line.

I found no Nazi in Azov at all at that time. However, I found Russian agents in Civil Azov, which pretended to be Nazi. They used Nazi symbolic, 14 88, etc. like clowns. I blended in, by pretending that I'm spying on Ukrainians, but then I did mistake and escaped. I reported them, so they are cleaned.

The article you link is written by Alexander Rubinstein - a former RT and Sputnik employee.

He is a strong denier of Russian interference in the 2016 election, has been vocal in his support for Assad, and denied, not only China's genocide on Uyghurs, but that the Uyghur population even exists.

There's an article on The Gray Zone by the center for right wing analysis here https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/09/25/1-6-2/

Browsing through Alex Rubinstein's Twitter it's clear that his argument basically boils down to "the west has done shitty things, so they're not allowed to say that Putin is bad for invading Ukraine"

This article is not meant to convince anyone that Putin is the good guy. It's meant to make readers doubt whether they're supporting Nazis by supporting sanctions as response to Putin's invasion - shifting the focus from the fact that Putin is indiscriminately bombing civilians.

It's perfect execution of the alt-right propaganda playbook - meant to induce apathy, because that's all that is needed for Putin to succeed with his imperialistic dreams.

here's an article [1] from Bellingcat (who are certainly quite different from RT and Gray Zone in terms of bias):

> In the most high-profile, but far from isolated, incident showing how Ukraine’s far-right movement is being mainstreamed by government leaders, Ukrainian Prime Minister Honcharuk and the Minister of Veterans Affairs Oksana Koliada appeared at an October 2019 event organized by a far-right figure on trial for murder. The event, called “Veterans Strong”, was headlined by the neo-Nazi band Sokyra Peruna, well known for its white supremacist, Holocaust-denying, and anti-Semitic lyrics.

> Some of their greatest hits include "Six Million Words of Lies"... [2]

Mayor of Konotop Artem Semenikhin was interviewed on PBS [3] this past week, and had a portrait of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera [4] hanging in the background.

[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/11/11/ukr...

[2] https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1193919249007415297

[3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russian-forces-bombard-tar...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera#Jews

I'm confused about what your argument is here. It sounds to me that your position is that this article is proof that Ukraine's government are Nazis (it's not), therefore Putin is justified both in invading Ukraine and the war crimes he's most likely responsible for during said invasion.

Is that correct?

> Is that correct?

Nope! I think Putin only cares about having a buffer zone from NATO, much like Afghanistan is (or was intended to be) for the US against China. I'm simply providing examples to your question upthread:

> Are they holding political office or have strong influence on the politics of Ukraine?

All 3 examples hold political office and 2 are upper-level administrative positions.

So you agree that Ukraine is not run by Nazis and that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is unjustified?

Sure. Do you agree that there are fascist elements in Ukraine's government that should dealt with (by the Ukrainians, to be clear)? If you don't, which aspects of my examples do you contest?

I have no opinion on how Ukraine deals with an internal situation - that's for the people of Ukraine to decide.

I definitely don't like fascists or Nazis, which is why I find it peculiar that you're spending time contributing to a discussion by posting supporting "evidence" for an article written by a guy with a fascist agenda.

Right now I'm more worried about the fascists that try to justify Putin's war crimes.

Ukraine is not run by Nazis and Putin is responsible for the murdering of civilians in an unjustified invasion of a democratic country.

If you're also against fascism, then maybe you should stop helping them when people spread their propaganda.

> by posting supporting "evidence" for an article written by a guy with a fascist agenda.

I compare sources with opposing biases because I believe it helps to parse out what's true and what's not. Bellingcat is absolutely in opposition to the Gray Zone line, I suggest contrasting their reporting on Syria for proof of this. That both of these sources are agreeing on these claims suggests there is some truth there. If you think that ignoring it is simply the most convenient thing for now, that's at least a more honest opinion than blanket denial and willful ignorance of independently verifiable facts. The latter is far more helpful to fascism than whatever you think you're accusing me of.

what about their "buffer zone" with finland?

Is the article inaccurate? Are there falsehoods?

The facts they choose to print are probably true - which again is part of the alt-right playbook.

Cherry pick the facts that helps you muddy the waters enough to instill doubt and create false equivalence in the mind of the reader between there being Nazis in Ukraine and indiscriminate murder of civilians plus turning more than a million people into refugees in less than two weeks.

So I'd ask you - do you think that there being Nazis in Ukraine is justification for indiscriminate bombing of civilians?

I think seeking to know the truth as best we can is the best path to peace.

So that's a no to being opposed to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians then.

Those people and their pesky truth! How dare they!?

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