https://bitterwinter.org/le-nazisme-en- ... rainienne/Nazism in Ukraine – Myths and Facts – 6. Pro-Russian Nazi Fighters in the Ukrainian War
Any analysis of neo-Nazism in Ukraine should consider that there are also Nazis fighting in the pro-Russian camp, perhaps even more than opposite.
(By) Massimo Introvigne
Pro-Russian fighters of the Russian National Unity (NRU) in the Donbass, 2014. Source: Anton Shekhovtsov.
Putin has repeatedly said that the "denazification" of Ukraine is one of the objectives of this war. However, one can wonder if, before denazifying other countries, he should not first put his house in order. Neo-Nazism is not specifically a Ukrainian phenomenon. It exists in all European countries and Russia is no exception.
In 2015, a report by the Center for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) at the University of Leeds painted a grim picture of neo-Nazism in Russia. “Swastikas and the slogans 'Russia for the Russians', 'Glory to Hitler' and 'SS' were painted on Jewish buildings. More than 800 extremist websites open their space to leaders of neo-Nazi and far-right organisations”. Even “a Miss Hitler competition between Russian and Ukrainian Nazi women is organized to determine who is the prettiest anti-Semitic woman”. Although its leaders deny it, Nazi orientations have emerged in the political party of Russian National Unity (UNR), which was banned in Moscow in 1999 but continued as the Russian National Socialist Party (PRNS) , and even with the name UNR outside of Moscow.
Neo-Nazi march in St. Petersburg, 2014.
As we have indicated for Ukraine, neo-Nazis in Russia are also recruited among football fans. The ESRB found that "the neo-Nazi threat has not gone away in Russia and it is clear that many have joined football fan groups", especially at FC Spartak Moscow, whose violent fans "have joined neo-Nazis in a display of racial violence against those they ideologically oppose”. “It is obvious, concludes the report, that Russia faces a serious problem related to neo-Nazism”.
It would be wrong to say that the Russian authorities did not act against the neo-Nazis. Those who committed crimes, including killings of non-white or non-Slavic citizens, were arrested and prosecuted. In 2011, for example, five members of a particularly violent group, the National Socialist Society of the North, were sentenced to life imprisonment for having committed several homicides.
The original flag of the UNR (now replaced by one without the swastika).
At the same time, reputable scholars consider credible the fact that the FSB, Russia's main intelligence agency and heir to the Soviet KGB, has infiltrated and used neo-Nazis for its own purposes. In the previous article in this series, I mentioned the studies of Vyacheslav Likhachev. In 2016, he published a study on the activities of far-right and neo-Nazi circles in Ukraine. He said that in 2014 neo-Nazi groups in the Donbass "collaborated closely with the Russian secret services and had been used from the start to start the conflict". The founder and leader of the UNR party, Alexander Barkashov, visited Donbass in February-March 2014 to create a branch of the UNR there.
The first “People's Governor” of the pseudo “Donetsk People's Republic”, Pavel Gubarev, was among the members of the Donetsk NRU. When photos of Gubarev wearing the UNR emblem showing a swastika were published by Russian dissidents, he was first defended by Russia, before being pushed aside.
Likhachev also notes the role of the UNR in orchestrating the “referendum” on the “independence” of Donetsk in 2014. “In May 2014, he writes, A. Barkashov also gave his instructions to local activists… on how and when to organize the 'referendum on independence' (the instructions of the UNR leaders were followed to the letter)”.
The embarrassing photo of Gubarev with the old UNR shield. Source: Kharkov Human Rights Protection Group.
After the problems caused by Gubarev, the UNR shield with swastika was replaced by one without swastika among the Donbass militias linked to the UNR, which included Ukrainian and Russian citizens, but other emblems remained . Likhachev writes that "The circular eight-pointed swastika – 'kolovrat' (a neopagan swastika) appeared on the badges of the neo-Nazi reconnaissance and sabotage units 'Rusich' and 'Ratibor', in the Rapid Response Group 'Batman' and the 'Svarozhichi' Battalion in the 'Oplot' brigade”.
In the other pro-Russian pseudo-state of Donbass, the People's Republic of Luhansk, certificates bearing the number 1488 were distributed to volunteers. As Likhachev recalls, “1488” is used by neo-Nazis all over the world. “'14' relates to '14 words', a white supremacist slogan coined by [American white supremacist] David Lane [1938–2007] and '88' relates to 'Heil Hitler' because 'h' is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet”.
As mentioned in a previous article, Likhachev played a major role with his investigation into the neo-Nazi past of the founders of the Anti-Russian Battalion Azov and he was publicly in conflict with its main leader Andriy Bilets'kyy, who even accused the researcher of relying on false documents. However, when investigating the presence of neo-Nazis in the anti-Russian camp and the pro-Russian camp in Ukraine, Likhachev concluded that "in general, members of far-right groups played a much greater role on the Russian side of the conflict than on the Ukrainian side".
Likhachev published his study in 2016 and referred to the war which started in 2014 but most of the neo-Nazi groups fighting on the Russian side he mentioned are still active in 2022. The researcher also found that “ the activities of pro-Russian neo-Nazis on Ukrainian territory were coordinated with the Russian secret service”.
Russian propaganda sometimes highlights the fact that notorious Russian neo-Nazis have gone to Ukraine and settled there. It's not false. Indeed, some Russian neo-Nazis who had become Ukrainian citizens fought in the Azov Battalion in its early days. Moreover, and Likhachev and Taras Tarasiuk and Andreas Umland (a researcher whom I have already mentioned in an earlier article) state that some Russian neo-Nazis who had gone to Ukraine, especially those linked to the UNR party, eventually fought in the Donbass alongside pro-Russian separatists. One of them, Anton Raevsky, tried to organize a pro-Russian uprising in Odessa. One can wonder whether they “fleed” to Ukraine or whether they were infiltrated there by the Russian intelligence services.
The jury has yet to deliberate in some cases, including Sergey Arkadyevich Korotkykh. He was born in Tolyatti, Russia (a town named after Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti, 1893-1964) in 1974 but after the fall of the Soviet Union became a citizen of Belarus. He also rose to prominence as a Belarusian neo-Nazi leader; he took part in various Nazi activities in Russia and in the spring of 2014, he left for Ukraine, just in time to join the newly created Azov Anti-Russian Battalion. He became one of its commanders and was granted Ukrainian citizenship.
Sergey Korotkykh. Source: Karkhiv Human Rights Protection Group.
In 2020, the Ukrainian NGO Institute of National Politics published a very detailed report which was "based on considerable research" according to Tarasiuk and Umland. The conclusion was that Korotkykh was, and always had been, an agent working for the Russian and Belarusian intelligence services. However, no action was taken against him. On March 4, 2022, he gave an interview to an Italian journalist in a hotel in Kyiv, waving an Azov flag and surrounded by Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian volunteers who he claimed were waiting for the Russians to fight them.
It is also true that Western neo-Nazi and far-right volunteers fought at the start of the Donbass war and are still fighting in the 2022 war, but on both sides of the fence. As the well-known Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” reports, Italian security services know that some 60 volunteers, mostly right-wing extremists (although some come from the far left) fought or are fighting currently in the war in Ukraine. On both sides, although the older and better organized presence of neo-Nazi and far-right extremists is in the camp of pro-Russian separatists.
I have a personal memory of this curious underground world. When I was criticizing Russia for the "liquidation" of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017, I was violently attacked on social media by a certain Andrea Palmeri, who fled Italian justice and is currently fighting with the Russians in Luhansk. Palmeri is the epitome of a militant football fan (of Tuscan third division club Lucchese) accused of violence and being a neo-Nazi who is fiercely pro-Putin. He spreads his propaganda (on February 24, 2022, he said on Facebook that the Ukrainian army “surrender without a fight” and argued that Russia could win the war in 24 hours) and fights with and for Russians.
Andrea Palmeri. Source: Facebook.
Are there neo-Nazis in the war in Ukraine? Yes, on both sides, and presumably more on the pro-Russian side. As for the “denazification” of Putin, a leading scholar of European neo-Nazism whom I have already mentioned in this series, Anton Shekhovtsov, explained in 2017 what this means: “In a Russian rhetoric that goes back to the Soviet Union , 'fascist' simply means 'enemy of Russia'. If fascists become friends of Russia, then they are no longer fascists”.
The other articles, five in number, are just as fascinating, documented and edifying.