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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   23859 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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US revoked the weapon ban on the openly Nazi, Azov brigade. The Azov Brigade, now 3rd separate assault force is also having considerable success in recruiting new soldiers. Now I don't know how much influence does Neo-Nazis wield in the Ukrainian government, but even assuming it is little, the thought of a trained, professional Nazi brigade with combat experience being armed with weapons and given legitimacy scares the shit out of me. What is the US thinking? What is their endgame? In the scenario that Ukraine is able to survive, do they think they can easily do away with the Brigade? In my opinion this is a huge miscalculation. The US might very well think Ukrainian politicians can outmaneuver Azovs if they decided to enter the political space orv if in worst case scenario, Azovs took Ukraine through a coup, they can deal with it through military action. Either option will come with huge costs, never-mind the possibility or degree of their success in disposing them.

Does anyone have any credible sources for the current Nazi influence in Ukraine?

I am not a Russia hawk, but I would need to see some evidence that Azov could actually topple the Ukrainian government before I believed it. As it is, the Ukrainians are hardly in a position to be picky.

More credible would be the threat of violent reprisals against Russians or Russian speakers in Ukraine, particularly in those regions that it seeks to reconquer, which seems very likely to me.

Oh, and I might add - Ukraine is not Germany. Germany is a great industrial and military power. Ukraine is poor and corrupt and has little industry. It doesn't even have young people. Even supposing it was taken over by Nazis (already a great stretch), it would not threaten Europe.

Not Azov, the far right which is far bigger than Azov. The dangers has lessened somewhat because the most zealous people were the most likely to die. A lot of Azov was killed in the futile defense of Azovstal in Mariupol.

Is this fear of Ukranaian Nazis genuine, or just an attempt to sap anti-Russian energy in the West by associating Ukraine with one of the past century's great villains?

There seems to have been a very convenient transfer of exaggerated fear of Nazis from the progressive left to the far right which took place right around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Historically it echoes how the American Left went from impassioned pacifists in the 1930s to hawkish anti-Nazis coinciding with the collapse of the Hitler-Stalin pact.

My far-right friends mocked the "punch a Nazi" drumbeat up until it became a weapon in Putin's rhetoric, so I have trouble accepting it at face value.

Is this fear of Ukranaian Nazis genuine, or just an attempt to sap anti-Russian energy in the West by associating Ukraine with one of the past century's great villains?

Speaking for myself as someone who doesn't really consider themselves pro Russian (but would likely be considered as such by others) there's no real genuine fear of Azov - they're just shown as an example of the hypocrisy of western governments. Nazis are the worst ever and need to be punched in order for democracy to survive... but these nazis are actually heroes, and your tax dollars need to be used to support them. The reason people bring up the fact that western governments are actually extremely pro-Nazi in the Ukraine is to damage the illusion that Western governments are motivated by ethical values("defending democracy" etc) rather than pure realpolitik.

There is potential concern that after Ukraine's defeat the remnants of the Azovites will become a far-right paramilitary organisation with a bone to pick with Europe, but nobody really cares - the far right are probably ok with an armed neonazi terrorist remnant fighting for their side and bombing synagogues, while the people who support the Ukraine war are doubtless extremely happy for there to be another reason for European tax dollars to get funnelled to arms/"security" companies once the war is over.

Is this fear of Ukranaian Nazis genuine, or just an attempt to sap anti-Russian energy in the West by associating Ukraine with one of the past century's great villains?

Yeah, I'm pretty anti-Western as far as it goes, but this is one of the lamest arguments in circulation. Like, who do you expect to voluntarily show up to face bullets, artillery fire, and drones? It's going to be the same type of guy in practically every country.

I don't understand why so many people seem to believe that Nazis have some kind of mystical totemic powers that make them an ever-present threat far beyond their actual material capacity. Like if 100 people do the Nazi salute at midnight, they'll be empowered with the strength of a hundred thousand Panzers, instantly overthrow their government, and invade Poland.

"...the thought of a trained, professional Nazi brigade with combat experience being armed with weapons and given legitimacy scares the shit out of me. What is the US thinking? What is their endgame? In the scenario that Ukraine is able to survive, do they think they can easily do away with the Brigade?"

The Azov Brigade is made up of 900-2,500 soldiers. The Ukrainian Army has 170,000 soldiers. Why, exactly, do you think the Azov Brigade is such a threat? Just because they're Neo-Nazis? That's it? Being Neo-Nazis grants them the superhuman power of the Ubermensch, and with it the ability to sweep aside an army 100 times their size? Do you think that Neo-Nazism is such an appealing ideology that if they ever get the tiniest shred of power then everyone in the Ukraine will instantly convert to become card-carrying Nazis - and, after that, the world, since apparently this is a threat that the US State Department should take seriously?

People who get performatively afraid of the rising threat of Nazism remind me of those homophobic Christians who are obviously in the closet. "Everyone knows that all men are sexually attracted to other men, and the only thing stopping us from getting hot and heavy with those beautiful, chiseled male bodies is the threat of eternal damnation. That's why we can never allow any homosexual sex, ever - it's too tempting! No one could resist the siren song of gay sex if it were an option! It would destroy the family!"

Do you think the only thing protecting us from the overwhelming power and appeal of the Nazi ideology is ruthless, constant suppression? Do you think that Nazism is so appealing, so powerful, so effective, that all it takes is one active Neo-Nazi group and a handful of guns to threaten the most powerful nations on Earth? Because if so I think you might be a Nazi.

I think of Nazism as nothing but a minor historical ideology that held sway for a little more than a decade, in one country, eighty years ago. They were ineffectual rulers who only managed to start and then subsequently lose a war before being deposed. Granted, it was a pretty big war. The thought of some guys in another country cosplaying as Nazis doesn't concern me any more than the thought of some guys in another country cosplaying as Jacobins.

A war is fought not only on the battlefield, but also in the realm of propaganda.

As you point out, the size of Azov is trivial compared to the size of the army, and wearing swastikas does not actually grant combat superpowers.

But this should also mean that the possible battlefield gains from arming them with US weapons would be small.

On the propaganda front, it does not matter that they are only a small group. The USSR fought one big war, in which some 13% of its citizens were killed. In the end, they won, and it is a victory celebrated to this day in Russia. Their enemies in that war were flying the swastika.

Allowing a group of your citizens to cosplay as Nazis instead of drafting them into regular army units is handing Russia an easy propaganda victory. One would be better off supporting a brigade of child rapists and cannibals.

Also, the threat model is not that Azov declares its own state and sets out to conquer Ukraine by force of arms -- which is indeed silly given the power balance. There is a huge difference between having two thousand guys with military gear outside your borders and having them freely move within your country. It takes a lot more than 2000 men with guns to defend against 2000 determined terrorists.

One of the scarier phrases from Weimar Germany is "Reichswehr schiesst nicht auf Reichswehr" -- uttered when the German army refused to engage paramilitary putschists because they recognized them as comrades in arms. Every army seems to have some fraction of crypto-fascists, and the Ukraine army is likely no exception.

At the moment, Azov are suffering the Jewish president Zelenskyy to live because his interests and their interests align -- both want to stop Russian aggression by military means. I find it highly likely that Ukrainian mainstream -- and their president -- will tire of this war before Asov does. From the situation on the ground, it looks like any peace deal would involve some concessions to Russia, Crimea if nothing else. At that point, Azov could turn against Zelenskyy.

Allowing a group of your citizens to cosplay as Nazis instead of drafting them into regular army units is handing Russia an easy propaganda victory.

But Russia also allows groups of its citizens, like this one, to cosplay as the Nazis. Of course one could argue that kolovrat is something else than a barely-plausible-deniality swastika (after all, it has barely plausible deniality!), but come on now.

Rusich is far, far less influential than Azov.

Firstly, their influence is grossly overblown, as outlined by multiple commenters here. A few thousand neo-Nazis aren't a particularly big threat, Ukrainian civic governance seems strong enough that in the event of a peace (of whatever kind, barring Russian occupation), the state machinery is at minimal risk of being overthrown and the country thrown into internecine fighting where such paltry numbers would make a difference. There are plenty of hardened combat units in Ukraine who have only fervent nationalism in common with Azov.

Secondly, there's always the pragmatic option once employed by Hamad to deal with the Al-Qassam brigades. What do you do with a group of fanatical (and exceedingly so, even by Hamas standards) Jihadists who went into every mission accepting death with equanimity if it spread their ethos?

You marry them off, going to refugee camps and selling impoverished women on the honorable prospect of marrying a glorious almost-martyr. Give them a pension and sinecure too, and they won't need to resort to violence as the only way they know to make a living, or as their first choice of livelihood.

Circa 2008:

Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, has been observing a truce with Israel since June, allowing its underground fighters to resurface but leaving them without much to do. At the same time, hundreds of the group’s women have been recently widowed, their husbands having been killed either in confrontations with Israel or in the fighting last year between Hamas and its secular rival, Fatah.

Taking advantage of the pause in violence, the Hamas leaders have turned to matchmaking, bringing together single fighters and widows, and providing dowries and wedding parties for the many here who cannot afford such trappings of matrimony.

“Marriage is the same as jihad,” or holy war, said Muhammad Yousef, one recently married member of the Qassam Brigades, the Hamas underground. “With marriage, you are producing another generation that believes in resistance.”

About 300 Qassam members, mostly in their 20s, signed up with their new wives for the most recent celebration, held at a sports stadium in the Tuffah district, east of Gaza City. Local mosques spread the word about the event and offered to help find spouses for single men whose families had not yet managed to arrange them a match.

As an added inducement, couples were promised a cash grant in lieu of a dowry, which few families could afford.

Turns out that a lot of angry young men with extremist tendencies rapidly cool down when confronted with a wife and kids they love and are responsible for. You're not going to dissuade them from their ideological tendencies quite so easily, but that's effectively de-fanging them.

In other words, deal with people with nothing to lose by giving them something to lose.

If/when this war cools down, well, there's plenty of Ukrainian women abroad, and at home, and it won't take all that much to either 'encourage' them to marry a dashing young fighter, while also giving them cash/jobs, and effective indemnity from political retribution when they cease to be allies of convenience. Provide the latter two and there's almost certainly going to be women wanting in regardless.

I get what you are saying, but pointing to Hamas as an example of how to successfully de-radicalize young violent men is not entirely without irony in 2024.

I think the important part is simply, how is post-war Ukraine managed? Nazi-aligned groups getting funded in life-and-death struggle with a high mortality rate needs to be understood in this context. There are some potential parallels with Weimar Germany, where you had disbanded military units wandering around and forming militias in the context of a destabilized, new democracy with significant economic problems. I don't quite see Ukraine taking that path, but it's a possibility if the war ends with a politically divisive whimper and the economy crashes that a particularly well-trained and cohesive -but ideologically radical- group gains power in a society where post-war violence is normalized and insecurity is the norm.

Of course, there IS still a moral argument for "even in a life-and-death struggle, you don't give power to Nazis" as just that, a moral argument only (no practical considerations). I think the logical link here is, how likely are the Nazi groups to actually act on their hate-filled inclinations? If it's currently mostly-benign and political only that's one thing; if it's active in repression somehow, that's another. I also somewhat hesitate to write Nazism off as purely a local and minor ideology when it killed 6+ million people outside of war.

I think the steel man is that Azov has a lot of street cred with the Ukrainian nationalist right and could easily wind up leading the place in the event of postwar turmoil.

But again, what made the Nazis so bad was a set of policies that Azov doesn’t seem committed to. They’re close enough for government work to call Nazi but they’re not doctrinaire Nazis.

I don't understand why so many people seem to believe that Nazis have some kind of mystical totemic powers that make them an ever-present threat far beyond their actual material capacity. Like if 100 people do the Nazi salute at midnight, they'll be empowered with the strength of a hundred thousand Panzers, instantly overthrow their government, and invade Poland.

Please give some examples of people who hold the belief you are criticizing. This would be a very uncharitable interpretation of the post you're actually responding to, so let's assume it's not them you're talking about. Who is it, specifically? There's apparently "so many" of them, in your words, so examples should not be hard to find.

On the one hand, it could be seen as a knee-jerk over-reaction based on the cultural prominence of this overall viewpoint.

On the other, the thread OP did say "scares the shit out of me" about it, and did not elaborate on exactly what was so scary about a thousand-ish men being given some weapons in the middle of a huge war involving many hundreds of thousands on both sides.

Good point, I should have elaborated on that. Its not exactly the weapons that I am concerned about but rather the influence. I wanted to know how much influence they currently wield in both the system and the populace, which is answered. Azovs and Nazis wield marginal if not zero influence in the system despite being popular with populace, and as long as the war goes on. On the other hand the west needs to get the post-war management would be crucial.

I tried to look into this some a while back, mostly along the lines of, what's the deal with the supposedly-Nazi Azov Battalion working together with Jewish Ukraine President Zelensky? What I came away with is, there's more than one perspective on Nazism.

There's the actual original Nazi party, a creature of 1920s Germany. Started out with mostly reasonable-sounding goals, but went to a very bad place. They're long gone now though, and nobody but some nerdy historians seems terribly concerned with what they actually thought and why.

There's how modern Westerners see Nazism, a mix of authoritarianism, warmongering imperialism, and racism and anti-semitism to the point of genocide. Reasonable given our perspective and role in the actual war, but probably not very well connected to how actual Nazi party members saw themselves.

How Russians and Eastern Europeans saw Nazism is another perspective entirely, with no connection to either of the others. Many in Russia, particularly Russian nationalists, see them as a horrific menace, bent on total destruction of their people and culture, that they only barely survived by tremendous effort and sacrifice. And quite a few in Ukraine, particularly Ukrainian Nationalists, see them primarily as a bulwark against Soviet/Russian domination, which was itself quite brutal and arguably genocidal against Ukrainians. I believe this strain is what Azov represents - it's just a meme demonstrating that they're really, seriously, majorly opposed to Russian domination. I don't think they have any awareness of, much less actually share, any of the actual viewpoints and goals of the original Nazi party, and of course have nothing to do with the Western view of Nazism. I think they'd be utterly baffled if you tried to discuss with them whether they intended to rampage across Europe and round up all the Jews if they were to win. They'd have no idea where you were coming from or how you got it into your head that they might want to do that.

I'm not in a position to provide examples but agree with OP that the described attitude is rampant.

Motte alum KulakRevolt had an interesting piece on this recently. https://www.anarchonomicon.com/p/were-all-hitlerists-now

So- my understanding is that Azov is neo-Nazi in the sense that they’re White supremacists who love Hitler, think the Nazis should have won WWII, and have a racial hatred for Russia and Russians. Sure, I’ll call that Nazi, but they’re not promising a genocide, or to invade their neighbors. Even if they wind up in the peacetime government of Ukraine after the war, they’ll probably morph into standard average nationalist-conservative far right party- the US isn’t panicking about mi hazank or reconquete either.

You're skipping over the fact that they were engaging in ethnic cleansing in eastern Ukraine before the conflict heated up.

I have no doubts people like that would be persecuting Russian speakers using typical natsoc tactics if given power, and that's a far cry from standard nationalism. The other parties you cite didn't do that and don't have large paramilitary forces.

People don't want to contemplate this because Putin uses it to justify his geopolitical moves, but it was still a real thing.

I did a rather cursory online search because the two linked articles are sort of confusing as they focus on two different units. The 3rd Assault Brigade is apparently a regular unit of the Ukrainian ground/land forces as of now, and if Wikipedia is to be trusted, its only tangible continuity with Azov is that most of its current(?) members were recruited in the Northern theatre of operations by those veterans of the unit who weren’t encircled in Mariupol. What I think bears mentioning in this particular context is that their insignia was apparently the subject of a rather comical PR move, namely that one stripe was removed from it so as to turn it into something that’s not a wolf hook. (See it for yourself here and here.)

The brigade, on the other hand, that still carries the “Azov” name is nominally of “special purpose” (whatever that means in this context, but this phrase has mostly been an ominous one, especially in Eastern Europe) and is part of the National Guard instead of the army land forces, but that is a difference that is only relevant in peacetime. And no, they don’t carry the wolf hook anymore either.

Anyway, it’s the latter unit that this US government decision affects, but I’d guess this is a purely symbolic measure, because I’d be rather surprised to learn that the Ukrainian National Guard used to have strict measures in effect until now to ensure the Azov does not receive US arms. And even if did, that’d only mean that Azov is being supplied with arms from other NATO members, presumably with rather more strict laws in effect against neo-Nazi symbology than the US.

Westerners seem incapable of understanding the idea of different cultures. If they want to like a different people, they’ll project their own culture on them and will rationalize away major differences as not really existing. Thus, Azov aren’t really Nazis, they’re just… LARPing, I guess?

Thus, Azov aren’t really Nazis, they’re just… LARPing, I guess?

What is "really a Nazi"? The German NSDAP party (1920-1945) has been defunct for generations. It's physically impossible to be a real Nazi then. And yet people keep using that word without irony and demanding to be taken as if they are speaking seriously.

I, personally, continue to be confused and angered by other's dialog around this fetishezed word. How it's used is clearly propaganda and point blank logical fallacy usage. The equivocation fallacy, I believe. X thing holds the mental symbolic resonance of [evil] thing we all hate. People want Y thing to be hated too, so they use the title of X and expect transference of associations, even though Y is objectively different than X in all the ways that made X probable to be associated with the mental color [evil]. Namly Y is not a militarized authoritarian party in the 1940s running Auschwitz and making massacre graves on the Eastern Front. What I don't get is why people, you included, seem to believe their own propaganda. This shit ain't real. "Nazis" are no longer real. Is there confusion on this?

What there is, and has been before, during, and after Germany 1920-1945 is the an ultra "right-wing" mentality and disposition. Some of these people do in fact engage in LARPy antinomian symbology and acts associated with the past NSDAP party (e.g. swastikas, salutes, black sun) - intentionally because they are so taboo most likely, because there's limited good ultra-right art/iconography to draw on, as well as admiration for the high point of the German ultra-right at its apex when it was winning. People love a winner and tend to rally behind one. But the ultra right mentality would exist if God deleted Germany from all time. People are their own thing. Again, is there confusion on this?

“Really a Nazi” here refers to genuinely held beliefs. “Not really a Nazi” means that Azov are only acting like they’re holding Nazi beliefs (whatever those are), but actually that’s only performative - on the inside they’re perfectly race blind liberals who think just like the modal westerner. I.e they’re LARPing as Nazis, like one would LARP as a wizard without actually believing oneself to be a wizard.

None of this is dependent on there still being “real” Nazis or not, since you’re using the word “real” to mean something completely different. I’m talking about what’s going on inside their head, not their party membership.

Alternatively they understand that Ukraine isn't going to be a national socialist state under the rule of the US state department. Unless they are willing to go full taliban Ukraine is not going to be national socialist. The Azov guys will end up in a trench somewhere. Mean while Ukraine's assets will be sold off to western financial institutions who will use staff trained at american colleges for white collar jobs while Bangladeshi migrants do the manual farm labour. The soldier's who are dying by the thousands can have whatever ideology they want, the companies rebuilding Ukraine's electrical grid and supply food to Ukraine's super markets have chief diversity officers.

Sure, that might be the rationalization this time around. It doesn’t explain all the other times this happens, or all the other replies here arguing that the Nazis aren’t actually Nazis, but it works for understanding this one decision this one time. I personally don’t buy it, because I’d prefer to see the overall pattern rather than zoom in on this one instance.

Mean while Ukraine's assets will be sold off to western financial institutions who will use staff trained at american colleges for white collar jobs while Bangladeshi migrants do the manual farm labour.

What I find sort of comical is that the situation won't be fundamentally different in the case of Russian annexation either.

Bangladeshi migrants are not a common feature of Russian economy, outside of the front line where they've managed to convince a whole bunch of Indians that a 30-40% chance of death for $4k a month is a good deal.

Well, India does have some tens of millions of surplus men, so maybe it is a good deal for everyone involved?

Bangladeshi migrants are not a common feature of Russian economy

Indeed they aren't. But Asian migrants as a whole, are.

That's the expected outcome of an invasion. Usually one lays one's life on the line and fights back to prevent such things.

Wasn't the original Azov brigade pretty much destroyed at Mariupol? It may be the hard-core guys are dead.

That's gotta be the least popular position - Azov really were a bunch of Nazis and they died heroically, defending their country to the last man because of their steadfast Nazi hatred for Russians.

They didn't 'die to the last man'.

~250 defenders of Azovstal surrendered and were exchanged in a prisoner swap mediated by Turkey. Turkey also promised to keep the commanders interned until end of war, but reneged on that promise and returned them..

I am not an expert by any mean, but imho is the same situation of Croatia in the 90s; everyone screeching about far right nationalists who like Hitler and the Ustasce and the next croatian fascist regime after the war with Serbia. Then you have liberal democracy and talk of gay marriage legalization.

The Liberal-Atlantic bloc has been very good at using then dismantling far right organisation without any sort of problem, I have no doubt they will also do it in Ukraine. Unlike far-left organisations, there is no desire to keep these groups in power after the Emergency.

The crucial difference is that the war in question was concluded with complete success in swift military operations before Croatia had liberal democracy, because their war wasn't against Serbia per se, but against a separatist state in Krajina that was in a military disadvantage in every aspect, had no nuclear weapons, no arms industry and was not supported by any other country. Croatian far-right paramilitary groups had influence during the war because it was waged in the name of national independence. Once the central government's authority was secured over all territories it staked a claim for and the Croatian state was recognized by the so-called international community, I imagine there was little political support left for maintaining those armed groups anymore. I rather doubt they were dismantled in any sense, because dismantling entails coercive state measures, which I doubt were taken; it's rather that they there incorporated into the armed forces or disbanded on their own, and transformed into purely political parties.

I'm aware that the NAFO gang wants to believe that the situation in the Donbass is basically the same and final victory is in sight, but it actually isn't.

I have to agree with Dean, there aren't any real Nazis in Ukraine. You can't be a Nazi and fight for a country run by a Jew.

Far rightists? Ultranationalists? People who love sonnenrads and take every opportunity to get edgy tattoos? People who threaten anyone who opposes maximalist war aims? Sure. If we use the liberal definition of Nazism, then Ukraine is full of Nazis. The same people who were hysterical about Trump's fascist rhetoric could hardly ignore the Waffen SS LARPing.

The real trouble is all the weapons that have been pumped into such a corrupt country. They'll presumably find their way to third parties after the war, if not during it.

I have to agree with Dean, there aren't any real Nazis in Ukraine. You can't be a Nazi and fight for a country run by a Jew.

There were jews and half Jews in the Wehrmacht, and to a lesser degree the SS and also the Waffen-SS..

Hitler could make anyone an Aryan by fiat. He did just that with the Mischlinges Field Marshal Erhard Milch, General der Flieger Helmuth Wilberg, and others who had proved their military value. One photograph of Wilberg shows him resplendent in uniform with no fewer than 12 medals pinned to his proud Aryan, formerly half-Jewish, chest. Nonetheless, despite Wilberg’s altered religious status, he insisted that he fought not for the Fuehrer, but for Fatherland and Volk. The distinction was a common refrain among Hitler’s Jewish military men, and some Aryans as well.

Sure but being Jewish is a ethnically rooted property, not an ideological property like Nazism. You could be French and hate the French nation, seek its destruction and yet still be French. It would be impossible to be a French nationalist, however.

Is it? Except for the most extreme Jews, conversion happen and are recognized now. They're merely difficult, which serves to preserve quality.

You can't be a Nazi and fight for a country run by a Jew.

This gets at an interesting difference between the western and Russian (or at least Putin's) definitions of Nazi. In the west, the defining feature of Nazis is their hatred of and desire to exterminate Jews, and any feelings they have about Russians are orthogonal to their Naziness, whereas in Russia the defining feature of Nazis is their hatred of and desire to displace and kill Slavs (and Russians in particular as the leading Slavic people), and it's their feelings about Jews that are orthogonal to their Naziness.

Now, I would say that the former definition is closer to historical reality than the latter, but this misunderstanding is why we in the west have been bemused by speeches about the "denazification" of a country with a Jewish president. Moreover, your typical Ukrainian Neo-Nazi probably ended up that way because he has heard all his life from the Russians that Nazis are people who hate Russians, and since he does in fact hate Russians he figures he might as well put on the uniform and become more intimidating to his enemies.

whereas in Russia the defining feature of Nazis is their hatred of and desire to displace and kill Slavs (and Russians in particular as the leading Slavic people),

As it happens, the Slavs were categorised by the Nazis as an Aryan race until 1939, after the conquest of Poland.

whereas in Russia the defining feature of Nazis is their hatred of and desire to displace and kill Slavs

Which makes the Azov's "Ukrainians are the real Slavs, Russians are Finno-Turkic mongrels" ideology even harder to square with neo-Nazism.

The defining feature of neo-Nazis in Russian discourse is being a Russophobic nationalist while being white. Since there are no countries that draw a meaningful distinction between Russians as an ethnic group and Russia as a state, Russian propaganda doesn't have to distinguish between instances of both either. With one exception: if you're a Russian ethnic nationalist living in Russia that hates the multiculturalist message of the Russian state, you're definitely a neo-Nazi.

You can't be a Nazi and fight for a country run by a Jew.

I think that Real Life is often much more nuanced than this – people are often happy to team up with someone they hate to fight someone else they hate more, and military exigencies in particular makes for strange bedfellows. Random examples: the Free Arabian Legion, qualified Nazi "support" for (or at least limited facilitation of) early Zionism, support during the Civil War on the Confederate side for mass freeings of slaves to serve as soldiers.

I get the vague impression that a feature among far-right Ukrainian ethnonationalists is that the RUSSIANS are the inferior racial types, but that doesn't prevent them from thinking the same thing is true of Jews. Possibly e.g. Andriy Biletsky has moderated his views over time, but it seems quite possible to me he thinks fighting for a country run by a Jew is politically expedient for an anti-Jewish agenda over the long run. Of course I think one could, ah, question whether Ukrainian ethnonationalists are really "Nazis" even if they self-identify as Nazis for much the same reason and in the same sense that one could question if Lenin was really a Marxist/Communist.

I tend to agree with the commenters on here that corruption resulting in weapons getting trafficked is probably more likely than "a few hundred neo-Nazis topple the Ukrainian government" (although I doubt that's a problem unique to Azov) but in potentially unstable countries like, possibly, a future Ukraine I think there's a lot of potential for a few hundred guys with military experience and hardline political views to do Stuff up to and including Regime change. I'm not really sure that they need US weapons to do that, but of course it will look awkward if they end up using them.

They do seem to adhere to at least some Nazi racial doctrines, like ‘Russians are subhuman mongoloids’. Yes they draw the aryan/inter mensch line farther East than Hitler did, but it’s a similar idea.

What was incredibly amusing to me on several levels was that Hitler apparently felt that, in his "tier list" of races so to speak, the British were not the top but they were pretty high up the list. So for that reason he was reluctant to bring them into the war and even apparently didn't think it was very likely they would side against him, because race reasons.

Not surprising, given they're a Germanic people.

I won't deny that they could be far-right, fascist, white supremacists (for a certain definition of white)... But the distinguishing feature of Nazism from those ideologies is anti-Semitism.

I reckon you could be really excited about authoritarianism, militarism and eugenics but lukewarm on anti-Semitism and still be a Nazi. But you can't be pro-Jewish. You can't take money from Israeli billionaires!

https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/06/24/ukraine-jewish-billionaires-batallion-sent-to-fight-pro-russian-militias/

Sure, but this misunderstands the reason for the Azov nazi LARP, which is that they hate Russians and Nazis fought Russians. Finnish neonazis are likewise primarily motivated by anti-Russian and anti-Communist sentiment. Again, almost all are actually antisemitic, but antisemitism isn’t incompatible with serving under a Jewish President provided you agree with his war aims. The Azov position is that Zelensky wavered on Russia but was strong-armed into his current position by (ethnic) Ukrainian patriots. Plus, it’s not as if Putin isn’t also very close to many powerful Jewish oligarchs and friends (and Russia to Israel), so the war can’t really be described as some kind of antisemitic struggle in any case. If Ukraine wins, Zelensky can always be replaced; if it loses, no Ukrainian is going to be in charge.

They fight for that Jew because he toes their line and gives them what they want. Should that ever change, they'll turn on him instantly.

All few hundred (or at the most couple thousand) of them? Azov is so small I don't think the rest of the Ukrainian military and government is concerned.

I suspect they wouldn't be alone in their move.

That would mean a significant portion of Ukrainians are Nazis so dedicated they are willing to coup attempt. I'm not very well informed here, but I don't suppose that is the case.

I think a couple hundred hardcore guys with combat experience and a clear vision are plenty enough people to topple a government under the right circumstances.

The Seychelles coup attempt only had 53 mercenaries, and by all accounts could have likely succeeded if airport security hadn't detected their weapons.

I can totally buy that, given Sirsky and Zelensky’s popularity problems with the troops, Azov could have enough of the armed forces behind them to credibly threaten a coup if they decide to do that and pick the right moment, sort of like how seal team six could probably cause a lot more problems than you’d think.

Nonsense, we've never given weapons to some indigenous radical group because they were fighting the Russians, only to have them turn on us once that war was over!

It'd be completely unsurprising if the war ends, Ukrainians find out they've lost half a million dead for nothing and then one night every prominent neocon in the D.C. area gets a thermobaric RPG warhead* delivered into his bedroom at 3 am.

It's like how good is anti-FPV surveillance? FBI seems interested in chasing politics. And you would only need some guys to smuggle in a ~50 RPGs and a bunch of drones. They could be flown over the internet easily.

*that's how the leaders of the Donbass uprisings were killed. It's the most powerful and compact 'bang per buck' out there. Unclear whether they were killed by SBU or Kremlin.

More likely every Ukrainian who would think to do that will be dead by the war's end, and the country will be run by parasites that went to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government

The FPV operators are well behind the lines and so far indispensable because their skill matters because for some reason, Silicon Valley still haven't delivered a good killbot.

There'll be plenty left.

9/11 was Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.

The Taliban fought the US after (a) the US demanded that Bin Laden etc. were handed over and (b) the US joined with the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban. If the Taliban had demanded the extradition of Pinochet (if he had been in hiding in the US) and allied with China to invade the US, I imagine that Americans would also have turned on the Taliban - not that the US was ever actually allied with or directly helping the Taliban, but I'm sure your suggestion to the contrary was just terse writing.

Well you've really changed my mind with that bit of scintillating criticism.

This is unnecessary dickishness. You do this often enough that you can't pretend you haven't been warned, and you are a grown man who can control your mouth and your typing fingers, so stop pretending you can't help it.

9/11 was Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.

Bin Laden got his start in the mujahideen in Afghanistan, fighting the Soviets, supported and trained by the US. Is there an objection here beyond terminology?

[EDIT] - no, wait, it isn't even terminology. Your correction is straightforwardly less accurate than the comment it aims to correct. Didn't the Taliban get significant support from the US as well?

Bin Laden got his start in the mujahideen in Afghanistan, fighting the Soviets, supported and trained by the US.

(1) I specifically said Al-Qaeda, because the original claim was about groups, not individuals. For the specific claim I made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden

Bin Laden was able to get Al-Qaeda going with his own money.

That bin Laden was a CIA proxy turned rogue makes for a great story and many people find it "too good not to be true". It supports non-interventionist ideologies, especially those who have never forgiven the US and the mujahideen for defeating the Soviets. The only problem is that it is not true, unless the CIA is far better at covering its tracks than we know. The suggestion in your comment (which may just be amphiboly) that he was trained by the US is a new one to me, though. I suppose it makes the story even better?

You could say that Al-Qaeda benefited INDIRECTLY from US aid to the mujahideen, but that's a clear motte-and-bailey. The original claim was (sarcastically) "we've never given weapons to some indigenous radical group because they were fighting the Russians, only to have them turn on us once that war was over!"

(2) "Didn't the Taliban get significant support from the US as well?"

You mean the organisation founded two years after the war with the Soviet-backed government ended? No.

However, someone could argue that the Taliban was the successor group of some mujahideen (specifically Pashtun ones around Kandahar) who had US support during the war, so I deliberately focused the discussion on Al-Qaeda, who seem to have undertaken 9/11 independently of the Taliban. Bin Laden claimed that Al-Qaeda was operating independently of the Taliban in the 9/11 attacks. He also did not attribute responsibility to the Taliban in tapes discovered in Afghanistan that (apparently) recorded bin Laden talking candidly. This was prior to his later (2004) admission of responsibility for the attack.

Indeed, the Taliban condemned the attack and were open (officially) to extraditing bin Laden to an Islamic country, if the US presented evidence. Of course, this offer was probably bullshit, and the US was justified in attacking the Taliban. However, the point is that 9/11 was not blowback for supporting a side in Afghanistan. If anything, it was the failure by the Bush I and Clinton administrations to support the establishment of a non-Taliban government in the mid-1990s that led to Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for bin Laden.

Does anyone have any credible sources for the current Nazi influence in Ukraine?

No, but then I wouldn't expect to much credible information on something that largely doesn't exist, and I don't know any credible sources that would unironically use the term 'professional Nazi' either.

Given that the Azov Brigade's primary Nazi-ness was primarily performative, not ideological, and the primary ideological parallel was 'anyone the russians hate who could kill a lot of them had something going for them' rather than 'uber-racist genocidal anti-semetic state-supremacist nationalist with a desire to conquer Europe and colonize the east,' I'm also unclear what you think a 'trained, professional Nazi brigade' entails. Fashion-conscious parades? Cosplay with vigor? Casual drives through the Ardennes?

The neo-nazi accusation is about as old as the Russian incursion into Ukraine, which is to say 2014 and attempted at the Nova Russia uprising that fizzled into the Separatists, and has been the go-to accusation for the Russian propaganda aparatus for a decade now. It's about as well founded as it ever was. The Azovs were Nazis in much the same way that Satanists are worshippers of evil- it was (and to a degree still is) a form of unrepentant defiance by identifying with your hated outgroup's nominal worst fear / hated foe, rather than with what otherwise might be presented as a cultural sibling.

At the end of the day, the Azovs were one of a large number of private and oligarch-sponsored militias groups that rose during the chaos of Russia's attempted nova russia uprising. They weren't particularly nazi, unless you conflate all right-wing politics with nazi, and the only thing particularly notable about them aside from their wearing accusations like a badge of honor was a relatively high valor and willingness to keep fighting, which is why they were notably effective, and one of the reasons the Russians have fixated on them in particular.

That Azov formation is long dead. Between the post-2015 reorganization of the oligarchic controlled militias into the national military with replacements of key leaders, the normal military manning cycles, and the extremely high attrition during the Mariupole campaign in 2022, very little of the original formation remains, and the formation itself has been expanded and thus flooded so even pre-war composition would be flooded by outsiders, i.e. diluting the characteristics of the precursor personnel.

Unless you believe that nazism is a magical mind-virus that converts by insinuation and proximity, there's no particular Nazi influence in the Azov Brigade. The Azovs are basically a quote-unquote 'prestige' unit that people want to join because it is prestigious, and it is prestigious does much the same thing as any other, but with better (or, if you prefer, notorious) PR.

Unless you believe that nazism is a magical mind-virus that converts by insinuation and proximity

"If there's a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, then you got a table with 11 Nazis."

So kind of yeah, that's a somewhat common sentiment among some people.

The counterpoint of this is that the is a Nazi-cosplayer at a table and 10 other people sitting there, then you have a table with 0 Nazis. And if someone comes along and points and shouts 'Nazi', you still have 0 Nazis.

Nazi is as Nazi does, not as Nazi dresses or Nazi-accused. Belief otherwise may be somewhat common sentiment among some people, but these are generally the same people who similarly mis-used 'fascist', and they are just as wrong even if their numbers do allow them to appeal to the bandwagon fallacy.

That’s a misunderstanding of the phrase though. The phrase doesn’t mean you’ll catch Nazi ideology like it’s COVID. What it means is that if you’re hanging around with Nazis you are already at least okay with the ideas they espouse. It’s not a dealbreaker for you or you won’t sit there and talk to that guy. And I think it’s pretty reasonable in that sense, though it’s true of almost any ideology. If you’re talking to them and especially in the political sense of negotiation with them for power, you’re at least okay enough with them that you’re willing to give them a seat at the political table.

What it means

What it means is a threat.

How? Again, it’s not the claim that you catch Nazi like a big. The claim isn’t even about the Nazis per se. The claim is that people willing to have Nazis involved in their professional or political or social circles are at least okay with the ideology.

It's a threat insofar as SJ persecutes Nazis and thus a statement that non-haters of Nazis are Nazis is a threat to persecute anyone who doesn't join in the persecution.

You don’t think Azov’s high status in Ukraine converts new entrants into true believers in the Nazi stuff?

I mean, obviously they’re not full bore Nazis. But they do seem to be racist ultranationalists, which is close enough for government work.

You don’t think Azov’s high status in Ukraine converts new entrants into true believers in the Nazi stuff?

No, I don't. I've seen no evidence that Azov ever had true believers in the Nazi stuff, let alone converted new entrants into it,

I mean, obviously they’re not full bore Nazis. But they do seem to be racist ultranationalists, which is close enough for government work.

That government work being the Russian state-driven propaganda narrative claiming they are full-bore Nazis, and expecting others to go along with it on 'close enough' grounds that are not, in fact, close enough.

There are a lot of racist ultranationalists in the worlds. Equating them with Nazis or would-be-Nazis-if-empowered is a facile understanding of the Nazis as a polity and an ideology.

Thanks for the reply. Your arguments regarding the "performative Nazism" of Azov makes sense to me, I find it probable that Azovs are a right wing movement instead. If you could provide additional sources for further reading, that would be helpful.

That Azov formation is long dead. Between the post-2015 reorganization of the oligarchic controlled militias into the national military with replacements of key leaders, the normal military manning cycles, and the extremely high attrition during the Mariupole campaign in 2022, very little of the original formation remains, and the formation itself has been expanded and thus flooded so even pre-war composition would be flooded by outsiders, i.e. diluting the characteristics of the precursor personnel.

Unless you believe that nazism is a magical mind-virus that converts by insinuation and proximity, there's no particular Nazi influence in the Azov Brigade. The Azovs are basically a quote-unquote 'prestige' unit that people want to join because it is prestigious, and it is prestigious does much the same thing as any other, but with better (or, if you prefer, notorious) PR.

I don't fully agree with you on both of those point. Azovs doesn't seem to me a prestige unit since all sources arguing for and against them being "neo-nazi" do agree that they have been a particularly effective unit. On the right wing ideological dilution part, that could very well be true but its hard to determine the effectiveness of it and both Ukraine and Russia have incentives to lie.

For reading, I don't have anything specific regarding the Azovs for you on hand, but I would recommend reading into how the oligarchs of Ukraine were involved in the Nova Russia uprising, both in aligning with and against, and how the early 2014 militias were formed / organized / incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces.

I don't fully agree with you on both of those point. Azovs doesn't seem to me a prestige unit since all sources arguing for and against them being "neo-nazi" do agree that they have been a particularly effective unit. On the right wing ideological dilution part, that could very well be true but its hard to determine the effectiveness of it and both Ukraine and Russia have incentives to lie.

Being a particularly effective fighting force is why they are prestigious, despite the infamy. But being a particularly effective unit is not an exceptional status, it is a relative status, and half of all units are above average.

What sets Azovs above and apart from most other above-average units- in additional to much higher media visibility (in part due to Russian efforts)- is that the Azovs have been at some of the more notable front lines where the Russians simultaneously had the most visibility but also showed their limits, which naturally leads to the self-serving deflection narratives of 'we're not bad, they're just good.' That was literally how they first gained notice- their origin is that of a militia formed and fighting before the formal armed forces of Ukraine were able to be reorganized during the Nova Russia campaign (giving Azov rivals of mostly-forgotten militias that didn't stand the test of time) in a conflict that the Russian proxies did so badly in that (giving the Azovs a contextual win) that the Russian army had to intervene (giving their survival it's own victory-against-the-odds narrative).

Consider how the 'modern' Azov's most significant performance was in the Mariupol defense of 2022, when the Russians were forced into a three month siege. For the later in particular, a three month siege of basically March / April / May 24. Standing ground and holding out in a 3-month siege is no joke and deserves the kudos... but it's also shaped by the factor that they had very good reason to believe the Russians would kill them outright (or in a show trial) if they surrendered due to them being used as part of the Russian de-nazification war narrative, and the fact that multi-month sieges were kind of a defining characteristic of the Russian invasion after the first few months, and also that the mariupol offensive was the primary Russian offensive in that part of Summer 22 while most of the rest of the front was static with marginal creeping artillery advances elsewhere. So while the fact that the Azovs fought hard is true and commendable, but it's also relatively normal for units of highly motivated people with good cause to fear surrender, and the dramatic image of defense and hard fighting was... kind of normal across the line in a number of places.

Azov's distinction in the war isn't hard fighting or urban defensive fighting. It's branding while doing that, when most Ukrainian units that did so lack the reputation or international visiblity or the contextual international drama for the times Azov was most visible when Ukraine was still in chaos in 2014, and when the post-Kyiev Russian offensive was still new and uncertain in 2022 and people thought a dedicated Russian offensive in the south could sweep the southern coast. After the Mariupole campaign, most people understood the Russians weren't going to steamroll the south, so units that fought just as hard wouldn't get the same valor / public credit that Azov did because it was expected rather than a surprise for the Russians to struggle so hard for so long.

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