Disbanded: Active
First Attack: April 2014: The Azov Battalion’s first violent attack was in April 2014 when it clashed with Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk (Unknown Killed, Unknown Wounded).
Last Attack: August 2022: Azov SSO units in Kharkiv claimed credit for an attack on Russian forces outside the village of Ternova, in the Kharkiv region. A commander of the SSO unit claimed the attack destroyed several vehicles, an outpost, ammunition depot, and killed 7 Russian combatants. Azov SSO units are integrated alongside Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, and are extensions of the Azov Regiment.
The Azov Movement is a far-right nationalist network of military, paramilitary, and political organizations based in Ukraine. The paramilitary Azov Battalion component formed in 2014 before integrating into the Ukrainian National Guard as a Special Purposes Regiment. Following integration, Azov Regiment veterans broadened the movement to include a political wing, National Corps, and a paramilitary wing, National Militia. It is notable for its recruitment of far-right foreign fighters from the U.S., Russia, and Europe, as well as extensive transnational ties with other far-right organizations. In 2022, the movement came to renewed prominence for fighting against Russian forces in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Mariupol.
The Azov Movement is a network of political, military, and paramilitary organizations, rooted in the Azov Battalion. Many individuals have been members of different organizations in the network over time. While each organization has its own chain of command and decision making, they share aspects of ideology, personal networks, and often work together operationally. The Azov Battalion formed in March 2014 as a volunteer brigade to fight Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. The battalion’s origins lie in the far-right “Patriot of Ukraine” militant organization. For the purposes of this profile, any reference to the Azov “Battalion” is a reference to the original volunteer unit, prior to integration into the Ukrainian National Guard. All mentions of the Azov “Regiment” refer to the unit post official integration into the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Uses of the Azov “Movement”, refer to the broader network of the Regiment, National Corps, and the National Militia, discussed in greater detail below.
Patriot Ukraine
In 2005, Andriy Biletsky recreated the Kharkiv-based Patriot of Ukraine (PU) to champion white nationalist, anti-immigrant, extreme-right ideas in Ukraine. PU had previously been active during the 1990s and early 2000s. In November 2008, Biletsky also created the umbrella Social Nationalist Assembly (SNA) movement. The movement was a derivative of the earlier political party Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), which later became known as Svoboda. The SNA contained members from a collection of nationalist and extreme-right groups in Ukraine which promoted a neo-Nazi ideology. The PU became the de facto armed wing of the SNA. The PU also championed far-right, white supremacist ideas; in 2010, Biletsky claimed it was Ukraine’s national mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against semite-led untermenschen (subhumans)”
The Azov Battalion
In March 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense encouraged volunteer military units to mobilize a resistance campaign against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas. Volunteer military units would help “fill the gap” in the Ukrainian military’s defenses. Biletsky and several other PU members formed the Azov Battalion in response to this call. The group’s first violent attack occurred shortly after its formation in April 2014 when fighters clashed with Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk.
In June 2014, the newly formed Battalion gained international notoriety when it -- alongside 200 other pro-Ukrainian forces -- helped re-capture the southeastern city of Mariupol from Russian-backed forces. Regaining control of Mariupol for the government in Kyiv had critical strategic implications for the larger War in Donbas because of its juncture connecting the Donbas and Crimea by land and sea. The Azov Battalion’s role in retaking, and holding, Mariupol from the separatist forces was the group’s first significant victory and earned it international credibility.
During the Battle for Mariupol, the group came to attention for its neo-Nazi iconography on the battlefield. Specifically, the battalion patch, which featured an inverted Wolfsangel symbol superimposed on a Black Sun. The Wolsfangel is a historical symbol of independence that was later co-opted by the German Nazi Party. The Black Sun symbol is based on a design commissioned by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, and overwhelmingly used by neo-Nazi and esoteric National Socialist movements. While Azov leaders downplayed the group as a white supremacist or neo-Nazi organization, its patch was and continues to be widely considered a coded reference to modern far-right ideology. The movement denies the logo’s far-right associations, claiming the Wolfsangel is an amalgamation of the letters “I” and “N” or “Idea of the Nation.”
In October 2014, Biletsky left the group to launch a successful political campaign for a seat in Ukraine’s Parliament as an independent candidate. By leveraging his unit’s victory in Mariupol, he secured a seat which he retained until 2019.
On November 12, 2014, Ukraine designated the Azov Battalion a “Special Purpose Regiment” and formally integrated it into the National Guard, within the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. In December 2014, the PU formally disbanded and remaining members integrated into the Azov Regiment.
Foreign Fighters and International Networking
As the Azov Regiment continued to grow, it pursued international relationships and recruitment of foreign fighters. The group was initially composed of half eastern Ukrainians with foreign fighters from Sweden, Spain, Italy, Canada, France, and Russia. The group later recruited from Belarus, Germany, and possibly the United States. The Soufan Center reported that between 2014-2019 approximately 17,000 people from 50 countries – including the United States – traveled to fight in Ukraine although it is hard to determine how many specifically fought with Azov. Estimates breaking down this statistic paint a more specific picture. Over 13,000 of these entered the war on the pro-Russian side, 12,000 of whom were Russians themselves. Roughly 3,900 foreign fighters joined the Ukrainian side, 3,000 of whom were also Russians. Therefore there were roughly 1,000 non-Russian foreign fighters in Ukraine from 2014-2019, and it is difficult to estimate how many were specifically motivated by a far-right Ideology.
Azov’s transnational networking and recruiting efforts developed into a hub of international far- right activity based in Ukraine. As recently as 2020, National Corps specifically cited its desire for American recruits to fight against Russia, and help counter perceived “pro-Kremlin” narratives in the U.S. In interviews with far-right researchers, the Atomwaffen Division claimed to have sent members to Ukraine to obtain battlefield experience. Members of the American “Rise Above Movement” (RAM) have also openly publicized meetings with members of the Azov Regiment and National Corps. Robert Rundo, leader of RAM, traveled to Kyiv and fought in mixed martial arts matches with members of the Azov Regiment in a facility owned by Azov, called the “Reconquista Club.” Greg Johnson, an American white nationalist author, traveled to Kyiv to give a lecture and meet with representatives of Azov in 2018. A number of Russian nationals have also joined the Azov Regiment, due to their lack of political dissent options against Putin’s regime from within Russia, and the fact that Azov is a largely Russian speaking organization.
Due to concerns over ties to extremism, the United States Congress has included a provision banning material support from going to the Azov Regiment in every Defense Appropriations budget signed into law for fiscal years 2018-2022. While the language in these bills has continued to refer to the Azov Battalion, in practice the ban has applied to the Azov Regiment, since integration. The ban does not apply to National Corps or National Militia, although as non-state actors they would not be in a position to receive such support in the first place.
Integration into the Ukrainian Armed Forces
From July 2015 to early 2019 the Ukrainian government removed the Azov Regiment from the frontlines, and restricted them to bases in Yuriivka and Urzuf, southwest of Mariupol. This redeployment was largely due to international criticism of the Regiment, and its predecessor organizations, due to deep ties with the far-right. During this time the Regiment focused on recruitment and training, and participated in major military exercises with other Ukrainian units. While the majority of the Regiment was sidelined during this time period, some smaller units still operated in the Donbas. In 2018, at least three members of the Regiment were killed in action. By 2019, the Regiment expanded to include two motorized infantry battalions, 120 and 82 millimeter mortar batteries, D-30 howitzer artillery, a T-64 tank company, reconnaissance squads, drone reconnaissance units, sniper teams, canine teams, a well developed logistics section, and their own engineering and research team. In February 2019, the Azov Regiment was reassigned to a combat deployment in the Donbas, centered back in Mariupol.
In 2018, the Regiment’s engineers presented a prototype light attack vehicle for Ukrainian ground forces they called “The Buggy”. Designed for mobility and speed in any terrain, the Regiment proposed the vehicle as an answer to Russian fast attack vehicles Ukraine did not have its own version of at the time. As of April 2022, similar vehicles were widely used by Ukrainian forces, including Azov Movement affiliated units, for reconnaissance and hit-and-run tactics.
Building a Political Wing: National Corps
In 2016, Biletsky founded a far-right ultra-nationalist political wing called the National Corps. As part of this political wing’s creation, he toned down some of his political rhetoric and began to retroactively deny some of his earlier white supremacist statements. Biletsky altered National Corps’ rhetoric, attempting to present it as a patriotic party for veterans, in contrast to its predecessors who openly and frequently espoused explicitly racist views. Despite these efforts by Biletsky, evidence of National Corps’ extreme positions is still easy to find. National Corps was involved with attacks on Roma camps, LGBT activists, and protested the construction of a mosque in Lviv. These actions led a U.S. Department of State report to refer to National Corps as a hate group in 2018. Specifically, the report stated “There were reports that members of nationalist hate groups, such as C14 and National Corps, at times committed arbitrary detentions with the apparent acquiescence of law enforcement.” This reference was not an official designation, rather a reference in context with other far-right groups. In 2019, National Corps was estimated to have less than 20,000 members, and ran on a platform of re-establishing Ukraine as a nuclear power and opposing European institutions. The National Corps also supports the Azov Regiment’s international recruitment, providing housing and logistical support to arriving foreign volunteers.
That same year, Olena Semenyaka, spokeswoman for National Corps and head of the Azov Movement’s International Outreach Office, embarked on a new set of efforts to grow the group’s international ties. Semenyaka networked and organized events with far-right organizations and ideologues from Europe and the U.S. From 2016 until at least 2020, she regularly traveled across Europe, meeting with far-right groups, including Italy’s CasaPound, and Germany’s National Democratic Party, lobbying for these groups to support Azov instead of Russia. Semenyaka also spoke at the far-right Scandza Forum in Sweden, alongside Mark Collett, a Neo-Nazi activist from Britain’s National Party and self-described Nazi sympathizer.
In 2017, the Azov Movement created a political umbrella organization with other far-right groups to boost the National Corps’ presence in elections, specifically with Right Sector and Svoboda. The coalition barely registered in the national polls, failing to meet the 5% threshold to obtain Parliamentary seats, and none of the groups earned a seat.
In 2017, the Azov Movement added a new street wing faction known as the National Druzhyna or National Militia. The National Militia patrolled neighborhoods in small groups to ostensibly promote law and order. It also harassed public officials and clashed with police in January 2018. The National Militia conducted attacks against Roma and other minority targets. In February 2018, the National Militia formally announced its existence during a public assembly and torchlit march of 600 followers in Kyiv. During the march, members swore allegiance to Andriy Biletsky and the Azov Movement.
The Azov Movement
Since the creation of all three groups - the Azov Regiment in 2014, National Corps in 2016, and the National Militia in 2017- collectively they are often referred to as the “Azov Movement”. Differentiation of actions taken by the Azov Regiment, versus other wings in the Azov Movement is a challenge. This profile ascribes actions to the most specific entity possible between National Corps, the Azov Regiment, and the National Militia. However when sources are not specific, the term Azov Movement is used to identify that said action was taken by one of the three mentioned wings, but no specific information is available on which one. Members of the Azov Regiment, the National Corps, and the National Militia appear to flow between the three branches.
In 2017, leadership from Svoboda, National Corps, Right Sector, and other far-right political groups signed a collective document called the “Nationalist Manifesto”. This document articulated a goal of “acquisition and development of the Great Ukrainian State”, and demonstrated disparate far-right groups joining forces politically. Despite disagreements over whose candidates would take the lead roles on election tickets, the parties to the manifesto ran on a unified platform, standing together for the 2019 election. In 2019, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission granted the National Militia permission to officially monitor the presidential election. Although the commission specified the group was not permitted to use force, members openly stated they were willing to take matters into their own hands to stop election fraud. National Corps barely registered in the national polls; it failed to meet the 5% threshold to obtain Parliamentary seats, despite consolidating into a joint bloc with Svoboda and Right Sector.
In 2019, during President Zelensky’s attempted implementation of the controversial “Steinmeier Formula”, which called for elections to be held in seperatist-held areas under Ukrainian legislation and with the supervision of the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe. Part of that process required mutual disengagement of troops and armaments along frong lines in the Donbas, a move opposed by some veterans and volunteers who had fought. A small number of volunteers and veterans refused to comply with the Regiment’s ordered withdrawal from the town of Zolote, perceiving it as a concession to the Russians. Biletsky threatened to mobilize further Azov veterans and National Corps activists. Ultimately, Zelensky visited Zolote to attempt to resolve the crisis, resulting in verbal altercations with National Corps activists.
2020 and 2021 saw a string of violent assaults by National Corps members and leadership against rival political factions. Alongside members of C14, another far-right Ukrainian nationalist group, National Corps members clashed with members of the Party of Sharii, a fringe party often characterized as “pro-Russian”. These fights occurred on at least three occasions in June 2020, and Ukrainian law enforcement got involved, at one point detaining four veterans of the Azov Regiment on suspicion of carrying out these attacks. On June 25, 2020 a Party of Sharii Representative, Mykita Rozhenko, was beaten in Kharkiv. Rozhenko later reported that he had received threats from National Corps leaders Maksym Zhorin and Konstiantyn Nemichev. The day after the attack on Rozhenko, Biletsky gave a speech justifying attacks on Party of Sharii members, saying “vata (cotton wool) alway brings a lot of blood. This great blood, great violence, is much worse and scarier than anything they are whining about so much right now.”
In August 2021, 2020 the Shevchenkivskyi Court of Kyiv took seven Kharkiv-based members of National Corps into custody. They were charged with creating an organized criminal group. National Corps denied their members were guilty and staged a protest outside the President’s Office, leading to clashes against police. Following the violence, Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court took two more members of National Corps into custody for alleged hooliganism.
In February 2022, the group came to prominence again during the Russian military build-up on the border with Ukraine. Prior to the invasion, the Azov Regiment conducted training for civilians in Mariupol including medical care, survival and evacuation, and weapons training. In Kyiv, roughly 350 attended a paramilitary training event run by the Azov Movement. Olena Semenyaka, spokeswoman for National Corps, referenced Azov’s role in Ukraine as an opportunity to play a bigger role in Ukraine’s future politics. Azov leadership used the threat as a recruitment tool to attract both domestic and international fighters.
2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine
When Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he called it a “special military operation… to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.” The Azov Regiment was thought to be one of the organizations he referred to. In response to the Russian invasion, far-right militia leaders across Europe began posting declarations to join the fight against Russia.
After news broke that Muslim Chechen soldiers would deploy to Ukraine alongside the Russian military, the official National Guard of Ukraine Twitter account posted a video of Azov Regiment fighters dipping bullets in pig fat, claiming it would prevent them from going to heaven.
On February 24, Russian forces began to lay siege to the city of Mariupol. The Azov Regiment was one of the central defense forces in the city. Reporters also noted Azov Regiment affiliated units fighting against Russian forces in Kyiv and Kharkiv.
In early March 2022, President Zelensky of Ukraine again announced the formation of an “international legion” to facilitate the arrival of pro-Ukrainian foreign fighters. In a similar call to 2014, the Ukrainian government once again encouraged “Territorial Defense Forces” (TDF) to mobilize and help resist the Russian invasion. In early 2022, the TDFs organized into over 25 brigades, localized in each region of Ukraine, including Kyiv. The strategic purpose of the TDFs as a whole is to strengthen the capabilities of local authorities in reacting to Russian attacks. - The TDFs consist primarily of light infantry performing auxiliary and support missions behind the frontlines of the war, including guarding infrastructure, and combatting subversion in their local areas of responsibility. The TDFs are composed of a combination of combat veterans, as well as civilians with no prior military experience. Individuals convicted of serious crimes or have at least two criminal convictions are ineligible.
In line with this announcement, the Azov Movement established several new military units separate from the National Guard Regiment. First, and most prominently, Azov formed a TDF unit in Kyiv. The Azov Kyiv TDF involved many prominent veterans of the original Azov Battalion and National Guard Regiment who became involved in the National Corps and other Azov Movement structures such as ex-Azov Regiment commander and National Corps chief of staff Maksym Zhorin. National Corps’ late deputy secretary for ideology Mykola Kravchenko was also an officer in the unit when he died during the defense of Kyiv. A force of expatriate Belarusian combatants, including Azov veterans, also fought as part of the Azov Kyiv TDF before forming the separate Kastus Kalinouski Battalion.
As of March 6, 2022, approximately 16,000 international volunteers are estimated to have signed up, although it is difficult to estimate the number specifically joining Azov and its affiliates. By July, 2022, the Ukrainian military kept details of the International Legion, including numbers, home countries of volunteers, and their assignments, as closely guarded information. Therefore little additional information has been made publicly available.
On March 3, 2022 the siege of Mariupol began when Russian forces blockaded the city and cut off water access, electricity, and food. By April 18, most of the fighting concentrated down to a much smaller perimeter around the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works. From late April until May 20, 2022 fighting concentrated around the large industrial compound where a complex network of tunnels underground served as a safe location for civilians and Azov fighters alike. On May 20, 2022 Russian forces announced they had seized total control over the steel plant, claiming over 2,400 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered over the previous several days, including the bulk of the Azov Regiment.
Following the defeat in Mariupol, remaining members of the Azov Regiment attempted to regroup and reorganize in Kyiv with outside support. Dmytro Kukharchuk, commander of Azov’s 2nd Battalion Special Forces of Kyiv, is recruiting new volunteers, and training them with help from the American private firm the Mozart Group. Additionally, Kukharchuk claims the remaining forces have three U.S. made Javelins, short range anti tank missiles, and rocket propelled grenades, but lack heavy equipment like artillery and tanks.
In May 2022, the Azov Kyiv TDF became incorporated into Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces as the Azov SSO Regiment, which also operates a unit in Kharkiv. Its commander, Anatoly Sidorenko was previously chief of staff for the Kharkiv-area Azov Civil Corps. The Azov SSO Regiment also announced a similar detachment in Sumy, commanded by Denys Sokur. Sokur previously led the National Corps in Sumy. The Azov SSO Regiment’s specific unit insignia uses the design of a monument in the National Guard Regiment’s Urzuf base, three golden swords. Some news outlets mistakenly reported this represented the Regiment, or Movement as a whole, dropping the Wolfsangel logo completely, rather than as the specific symbol of a new unit.
In addition to Azov SSO-Kharkiv, veterans of the Azov Regiment and members of the broader Azov Movement also formed the reconnaissance and sabotage special unit Kraken within the first 4 months of the Russian invasion, which now has 1,500 members. Kraken’s leadership includes Konstantin Nemichev, a National Corps politician, as well as Serhiy “Chili” Velychko, who was freed from pre-trial detention for his alleged involvement in a National Corps-run extortion scheme after the invasion. Kraken has operated in cooperation with the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Nemichev claimed that HUR officials helped organize Azov veterans for the defense of Kharkiv before the invasion. In one example of continuity between Kraken’s activities and those of the National Corps, Kraken troops toppled a statue of Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov in Kharkiv, which had been replaced after a previous toppling by National Corps and other nationalist activists. Kraken has been accused of shooting Russian prisoners of war. Many of Kraken’s operations are executed in the Kharkiv region, focused on recapturing villages in conjunction with Ukrainian military units.
Azov also announced the creation of several other units within the structure of the Territorial Defense Forces across Ukraine, among the most active of which is the 98th Territorial Defense Battalion Azov-Dnipro, commanded by First Deputy Head of National Corps Rodion Kudryashov. In Volyn, veterans of the Azov Regiment formed the separate special purpose unit “Lubart” under the structure of the local Territorial Defense.
On June 29, 2022 Ukrainian officials announced the largest prisoner swap of the war so far, with 144 soldiers returning to Ukrainian controlled territory, including 43 from the Azov Regiment. This is out of approximately 1,000 Azov fighters held by Russia. Commanders of the Azov Regiment were moved to detention in Moscow, including top commanders Denys Prokopenko and Svyatoslav Palamar, alongside Ukrainian Marines they fought with in Mariupol.
On July 28, a series of explosions tore through the barracks housing Azov Regiment prisoners in Russian controlled territory in Eastern Ukraine, killing at least 53 prisoners and injuring at least 75 more. No guards or prison staff were killed in the attack, and only the barracks housing prisoners was damaged in the strike. Russia claimed the attack had been from a Ukrainian artillery strike, from a weapon system called High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARs, provided by western governments. Russian media displayed fragments from HIMARs strikes as proof, but did not provide evidence directly connecting the displayed HIMARs fragmentation to the blast at the prison. Russia claimed Ukraine struck the prison complex in order to prevent Azov prisoners from revealing war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces, as well as to prevent other Ukrainian forces from surrendering. The Ukrainian government denies responsibility, and asserts the Russian private military company Wagner Group executed the attack. Military analysts claim the physical evidence of the blast aftermath does not match the impacts of HIMARs strikes, and . Ukrainian Intelligence also intercepted a phone call by pro-Russian separatists, claiming the Russians had staged the attack by using remote detonation to explode the barracks, combined with a rocket barrage from 100 yards away to make it appear as an artillery attack.
On August 21, 2022 a car bomb in Moscow killed Darya Dugina, a Russian journalist and daughter of Alexander Dugin, a prominent pro-Putin ideologue in Russia. Russian authorities claimed a woman who entered Russia in July, and was affiliated with the Azov Regiment was responsible for the attack. Both the Ukrainian government and the Azov Regiment denied any involvement. Open source analysts reported Russia had flagged the woman they claimed was responsible back in April as a potential Azov member, making it extremely unlikely she could have entered Russia without raising red flags. The speed with which she was identified by Russian authorities (less than 24 hours) also raised questions about the authenticity of their accusation.
Andriy Biletsky (March 2014 to October 2014): Biletsky was the original leader of the group. He was formerly the leader of the far-right Patriot Ukraine and nationalist Social Assembly Organization. In 2011, he was arrested as part of a larger round-up of Patriot of Ukraine members for an attempted murder. In February 2014, he was released from prison following a government law exonerating all political prisoners. He left the group in October 2014 to become a member of Ukraine’s Parliament. He held this position until 2019. Despite losing his seat in 2019, Biletsky continued as the head of the National Corps as a political party, and maintained close contact with the regiment, including participating in training. In March 2022, National Corps suspended all political activity to take up arms in the TDFs, including Biletsky. As of June, 2022, photos posted online suggested Biletsky was participating in the defense of Kiev.
Ihor Mosiychuk (2014 to 2014): Mosiychuk was a founding member and deputy commander of the group. He was charged with trying to bomb a statue of Vladimir Lenin in 2011, which led to his arrest as part of the “Vasylkiv 3” along with Serhiy Bevza and Volodymyr Shpara. In February 2014, he was released from prison following a government law exonerating all political prisoners and helped create the Azov Battalion. In the fall of 2014, he left the Azov Battalion to run for Parliament with the nationalist Radical Party and won. He served in Parliament from November 2014 to October 2019 when his party lost all its seats.
Oleh Odnorozhenko (2014 to Unknown): Odnorozhenko was a deputy commander of the group in its initial phase.
Ihor Mykhailenko (October 2014 to November 2016): Mykhailenko was a member of the Patriots of Ukraine prior to 2014. He joined the group early on and took over as the principal commander following Biletsky’s departure to Parliament. He later became the head of the National Militia wing in 2018.
Maksym Zhorin (August 2016 to Present): Zhorin served as the Regiment’s commander from August 2016 to September 2017 before transitioning to a spokesman role. In 2020, he worked out of National Corps’ central headquarters. He is now a commander in the Azov SSO units.
Olena Semenyaka (2016 to 2021): Semenyaka is the head of the National Corps political wing and head of international outreach for the Azov Movement. She has met with members of other far-right organizations including French Identitarians, the Italian CasaPound, German NDP, and U.S. Rise Above Movement. Prior to joining, she was the press secretary for Right Sector from 2014 to 2016. She became a key leader of National Corps in 2016.
Konstantin Nemichev (Unknown to Present): Konstantin Nemichev is head of National Corps for the Kharkiv region. He also commands the Kraken Unit, a volunteer unit organized by Azov Regiment veterans which conducts reconnaissance and sabotage operations against Russian forces.
Denis Prokopenko (2014 to Present): Prokopenko joined the Azov Battalion in 2014 and was one of their earliest members. By 2020, Prokopenko was leading the group in Mariupol. In February 2022, he was overseeing the Azov Regiment in Mariupol. Prokopenko was captured along with most of the Regiment when Mariupol was captured by Russian forces in May, 2022. As of July 1st, 2022, Prokopenko was being held in Moscow as a prisoner.
Azov, and the Ukrainian far-right more broadly, mixes classic right wing themes, including antisemitism, ethnocentrism, homophobia, and racism, with more populist economic proposals arguing for a greater role of the state in society.
The ideology of the Azov Movement is rooted in early 1900s Ukrainian Nationalism. Several key historical figures influence Azov’s ideology. Mykola Stsiborksyi, a senior ideologue in a nationalist Ukrainian political party in the 1930s, established the idea of Natisiokratii, or Natiocracy, a totalitarian system influenced by Italian fascism. Natiocracy held that capitalist liberal democracy only furthered the interests of competing groups, furthering exploitation and that liberty and equality were mere empty promises. Natiocracy also champions nationalism as a state’s defining purpose and rejects the principles of universal suffrage and equal civil rights. Under Stsiborksyi’s Natiocracy plan, the national elite govern under a single dictator, the economy is entirely under state control, and equal rights do not exist. In his political commentary, Biletsky referenced Natiocracy as the means to “form a political system that would ensure only professional and competent Ukrainians come to power.” The Azov Movement’s publishing house, Plomin, published editions of Natiocracy with the wolfsangel logo, and translated it into German for wider distribution. Housed in the Cossack House in Kyiv, Plomin functions as a literary salon and publisher for National Corps. The interior walls were decorated with imagery of facist ideologues from the early 1900s, including Yukio Mishima, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Junger, Oswald Spengler, and Julius Evola. A journalist who traveled to the Cosssack House and interviewed Plomin staff, as well as high ranking National Corps and National Militia leadership, characterized the publisher as perceiving itself as the “a harbinger of a broader, nobler intellectual and spiritual battle against the liberal ethos”.
Mykola Kravchenko, chief ideologue for the National Corps before he was killed in a Russian airstrike in March 2022, advocated for a concept he called “multilevel citizenship” as a part of Stsiborksyi’s Natiocracy. Kravchenko specifically criticizes universal suffrage as “the main reason for the very real deconstruction of the institution of national statehood”. Several tenets of this ideology include greater authority for the state to strip away civil rights and citizenship, rights should be based on merit, voting should be restricted to select people, and some votes should count more than others.
Dmitri Dontsov was another Ukrainian Nationalist writer in the early 1900s century, Dontsov propagated an idea of militant nationalism for Ukraine, wherein the nation is a collective entity with a will carried out by a national elite, and a advocacy for violence rooted in a theory of amorality – any act was justified as long as it was for the good of the nation. In 2018, Biletsky described the work as a “classic”. Eduar Yurchenko, a far-right ideologue with a history of affiliation with the Azov Movement, gave a speech to the National Corps in which he claimed Dontsov was key to understanding the “general crisis of European civilization”, which Ukrainians “have a mission to counter”.
Azov’s ideology exploits the militaristic aspects of historical Ukrainian figures. One example is Sviatoslav, a ruler in the 900s who conquered the Khazar Empire, whose rulers and part of the population were Jewish. Sviatloslav and is widely revered by the far-right today. In 2015, Andriy Biletsky built a statue of Sviatoslav in Mariupol, taking the place of a statue of Lenin. The Azov Movement references him as a model hero of Ukraine, and used historical artifacts believed to be linked to Sviatloslav as a means of generating support and recruits in its youth organizations.
Similarly, the Azov Movement constantly evokes the Cossacks, a people from the northern Black Sea region with a history of militarism in the 1600s century. Various myths and imagery of the Cossacks are utilized by factions across the political spectrum to include liberals, soviet propagandists and Ukrainian Nationalists. This imagery is typically used to support political narratives centering individualism, patriotism, and bravery. Azov uses Cossack symbolism the same way, and as a means of centering themselves as the heroic defenders of Ukraine.
Azov’s founder, Andriy Biletsky, stated it was Ukraine’s mission to “Lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against semite-led subhumans.” Biletsky’s group, Patriot Ukraine, precursor to the Azov Battalion, was characterized as a neo-nazi and ultra-nationalist organization, and Patriot Ukraine was assimilated into Azov in 2014. Members and leaders of the Azov Battalion later denied its neo-Nazi ties despite members having swastika tattoos and patches with extreme-right insignia.
Olena Semenyaka, spokeswoman and head of Azov’s international outreach office, has articulated a vision in which Azov takes over Ukraine. In remarks to the Nordic Resistance Movement, Semenyaka said “We are on the march to power and we will either have to get there by parliament or by other means”. In a 2020 interview, Semenyaka articulated a vision of Ukraine as the center of an “Intermarium”, or political union, of conservative Central European countries, which would defend its ethnocultural values against Russia, the West, and increasing globalization. An instructor at an Azov run summer camp for Ukrainian children stated that “only nationalists can give something to this country, not democrats, not liberals”. Azov’s political ambitions are slow and steady. Characterized as “metapolitics”, Azov pursues a political strategy centered around gradually shifting the mainstream closer to themselves to capture cultural power as a precondition for the capture of political power. Semenyaka has referred to this strategy in her public remarks, stating that Azov’s strategy is to build “cultural hegemony” as a means to building political hegemony.
Disclaimer: These are some selected major attacks in the militant organization’s history. It is not a comprehensive listing but captures some of the most famous attacks or turning points during the campaign.
April 2014: The Azov Battalion’s first violent attack was in April 2014 when it clashed with Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk (Unknown Killed, Unknown Wounded).
June 13, 2014: The Azov Battalion seized Mariupol from Russian-backed separatists (36 Killed, 24 Wounded). At this time the Battalion was a volunteer militia, and a sub-state actor, acting with the permission of Ukrainian authorities.
June 2018: Members of the National Militia attacked a Roma camp outside Kyiv. Twenty men destroyed the camp and live-streamed it on Facebook (Zero Killed, Zero Wounded). As National Militia is a wing of National Corps, a political party, this attack was carried out by a sub-state actor, not an agent of the Ukrainian government.
February – May 2022: On February 22, Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Combat forces clashed with members of the Azov Regiment and other Azov movement units in Mariupol, Kyiv, and Kharkiv. (Unknown Killed, Unknown Wounded). Although most of the Azov Regiment was killed or captured during the siege of Mariupol, other Azov units continue to operate in the vicinity of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and other sectors of the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
July 2022: International news reported Azov SSO fighters video online of a drone strike against Russian forces. It is the first reported footage of an Azov affiliated unit using a drone to drop explosives. Azov SSO units are integrated alongside Ukrainian Special Operations Forces and are extensions of the Azov Regiment.
August 2022: Azov SSO units in Kharkiv claimed credit for an attack on Russian forces outside the village of Ternova, in the Kharkiv region. A commander of the SSO unit claimed the attack destroyed several vehicles, an outpost, ammunition depot, and killed 7 Russian combatants. Azov SSO units are integrated alongside Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, and are extensions of the Azov Regiment.
In May 2014, Ukraine designated the Azov Battalion as an official volunteer battalion status.
On September 17, 2014, Ukraine designated the Azov Battalion as a “regiment.”
On November 12, 2014, Ukraine redesignated the Azov Battalion a “Special Purpose Regiment” and formally integrated it into the National Guard.
In 2016, Facebook designated the Azov Battalion a “dangerous organization,” which allows it to regulate Azov content and deplatform Azov-related pages. In February 2022, Facebook’s parent company Meta announced that it would be temporarily loosening this designation to allow discussion of the Azov Regiment in the context of Ukrainian defense efforts. The ban still prohibited Azov from using Facebook for messaging, advertising, and recruiting
Annual U.S. military support to Ukraine has included a ban on any material from going to the Azov Battalion since 2017. While the language in the Congressional Bill refers to the defunct Azov “Battalion”, it has been interpreted to mean a ban on material support from going to the Regiment specifically.
