Your article is behind a pay wall, so it can conveniently not be checked. But your quoted line suggests they got no help from the military not that they weren't there.
> Does it? Deliberately shelling a town and killing civilians together with 'suggestions' of neo-Nazi from Azov look like a basis to me.
There is no promise there, I understand the distinction might be hard to notice for someone who doesn't speak English as a first language.
"But your quoted line suggests they got no help from the military not that they weren't there."
Seriously? "there was almost no response, no (Russian) military." suggests you that Russian military was there? It seems, English is not your native language either.
"There is no promise there"
That's why I didn't use that word. Azov's 'suggestion' to attack border towns like Chechens did is "a basis in reality" unless you think that NYTimes journalist invented this.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20230613012141/https://www.nytim...