Yeah

And KKK

I’d have to find the scholar’s name (very lazy) but there was a guy who is an expert on Ukrainian history who did the rounds obviously two years ago but also years before the current major conflict.

Anyway, IIRC he was saying pretty bluntly that yes, Azov are Nazis, there’s no point in denying it, and before the current war it was very commonly written about. I remember reading or hearing about those papers myself. It was also a common criticism of the Ukrainian diaspora that they were always trying to honor their great “war hero” grandfather or great uncle, etc. who turned out to be literally in the SS or something.

Since the current stuff began, however, he was saying people who were going to be conscripted may have run to join Azov for a pretty simple reason that Azov was known as the crazy Nazi guys, but they also had organization and presented themselves as professional soldiers. Which could be appealing to random young guys who either want to join or know they will soon be compelled to join. They want to join the most elite, best trained unit so the chances of dying are minimal.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking, maybe it’s running a bit of cover for Nazis, I dunno. It’s pretty clear Ukraine has had and still has a problem with these Nazi militias. Russia invading doesn’t magically make the Nazis not Nazis like the liberal media has been insisting. It’s also hard for me to imagine a young person who, benefit of the doubt, may have legitimately just been running to what they saw as the strongest group around not adopting the ideology of that group over 2.5 years of fighting. So it kinda doesn’t matter why they initially joined. If they’re running around with Nazi tattoos or uniforms with the SS lightning bolts… maybe they weren’t Nazis at the end of 2021, but they are now.