Azov’s links to international neofascism

Some notable Azov veterans and groups affiliated with the Azov movement took part in the launch of the Nation Europa network. In particular, Denis Kapustin, said to be “one of the most dangerous neo-Nazis in Europe,” is the commander of the HUR’s Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC). Alexey Levkin, an important ideologist in the Azov movement, also from the RVC, co-founded Nation Europa as the head of “Wotanjugend,” an extremely neo[fascist] group from Russia. Whereas Kapustin has a history of organizing far-right fighting tournaments in Russia and Ukraine, Levkin has organized [so‐called] National Socialist black metal festivals as the leader of the band “M8L8TH,” which is popular among hardcore neo[fascists] in Ukraine.

Screenshot from Twitter (because Substack can’t embed posts anymore) [For anybody having difficulties reading the screenshot, it is a post from Leonid Ragozin that says, ‘Those were the days back in Russia:) Aleksey Levkin and Denis Vikhorev of Azov-linked Wotanjugend with Russian neo-pagan and fascist ideologist Aleksey "Dobroslav" Dobrovolsky in 2005. Both are in Ukraine now and Dobroslav died in 2013. Recently posted by Levkin.’ — Anbol]

Yurii Pavlyshyn, the medic from Azov’s 3rd Assault Brigade, is the bass guitar player in M8L8TH, and apparently a coordinator of Nation Europa. To hear it from him, no matter who “wins” the war, “it will be a defeat,” because there will be a “dictatorship” in Ukraine of the Russian or Western neoliberal variety. He suggested that instead there should be a nationalist dictatorship of war veterans, “because the real elites of our ancient Ukraine are now in trenches and dugouts.” He calls this “Trincerocrazia,” or “Trenchocracy.”

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The HUR’s International Legion, which includes the RVC, is filled with neo[fascists] tied to the Azov movement, and they largely spearheaded the conference. Representatives of the HUR’s Russian, German, and Belarusian Volunteer Corps, including Alexey Levkin from Wotanjugend, constituted a majority of those from Ukraine’s military that signed Nation Europa’s “Memorandum of Unity and Cooperation.” Azov veterans created the Belarusian unit, and the German squad originated in Der Dritte Weg (“The Third Way”), a small neo[fascist] party in Germany that is allied with the Azov movement. The German delegation at the Nation Europa conference included Klaus Armstroff, the founding chairman of “III. Weg.”

In the short video that Nation Europa released about the conference, the representative of the German Volunteer Corps (NDK) only briefly appeared without a blur over his face. This might be the same neo[fascist] NDK fighter seen on the right, who included the “Fourteen Words” in his selfie.

The Revanche battalion is another HUR unit that participated in the conference and signed its memorandum. It did so alongside the violent far-right “conservative” organization “Tradition & Order,” which created the unit. These groups might have drifted apart, but not from their allies in CasaPound, an Italian neo-fascist movement, which is an important backer of the Nation Europa project.

Luigi De Biase: “The Ukrainian battalion ‘Revanche’ celebrates the anniversary of the [fascist] March on Rome. The motto (‘The March Continues’) is the same one that appeared the day before yesterday [October 27, 2022] in Rome, on a banner near the Colosseum.”

Alberto Palladino, an Italian “journalist” who hospitalized five members of the Italian Democratic Party in 2011, represented CasaPound at the first Nation Europa meeting. Several years ago, Palladino presented “CasaPound’s Point of View” at the Azov movement’s second “Paneuropa” conference. In 2022, he shared the above photo on his Instagram account. That year Palladino wrote a report and made a mini-documentary about the Revanche battalion after an exclusive visit to their base. The video featured an interview with a soldier who wore a patch inspired by the Waffen-SS Dirlewanger Brigade.

Gabriele Adinolfi, an unofficial founder of CasaPound, was the main guest speaker at the Nation Europa conference, although he participated remotely. “The great challenge is to create new elites for Europe,” he said. One month earlier, the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University published an illuminating essay about this 70-year-old “Architect of a European Neofascist Network.”

:::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (September 12). 1882: Ion Agârbiceanu, fascist priest, made the mistake of existing.
1938: Adolf Schicklgruber demanded autonomy and self‐determination for the Germans of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region.
1941: The Axis launched a renewed offensive against Odessa, and the Jäger Report (issued later that year) noted that the Axis and its collaborators massacred 993 Jewish men, 1,670 Jewish women, and 771 Jewish children in Vilnius for a total of 3,334 people.
1942: An Axis submarine torpedoed the RMS Laconia off the coast of West Africa, sinking it and massacring its civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs. Meanwhile, on the first day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge during the Guadalcanal Campaign the Imperial Japanese Army assaulted the U.S. Marines protecting Henderson Field.
1943: Otto Skorzeny’s commando forces rescued Benito Mussolini from his house arrest. 1944: The liberation of Yugoslavia from Axis occupation continued, and Bajina Bašta in western Serbia was among the liberated cities.
1945: Korean communists proclaimed the People’s Republic of Korea, bringing an end to Axis rule over Korea. Coincidentally, the Axis field marshal Hajime Sugiyama ended his own life.
1953: Hugo Schmeisser, Axis arms designer, expired.
1956: Count Sándor Ágost Dénes Festetics de Tolna, pro‐Reich Zionist, dropped dead. :::