Posted on 06/30/2024 4:50:04 AM PDT by delta7
The government-funded research project's mysterious removal of Azov’s profile was followed by a State Department decision to allow the controversial right-wing unit to receive U.S. military aid
Stanford University’s Mapping Militants Project (MMP), a U.S. Government-funded initiative that conducts research on “violent militant or extremist organizations,” quietly removed their profile on the Azov Battalion early last month. The Azov Battalion (now known as the 12th Special Purpose Brigade “Azov”) is a Ukrainian National Guard unit infamous for its use of neo-Nazi insignia, recruitment of far-right foreign fighters, and alleged war crimes. The Stanford MMP’s mysterious removal of its Azov profile was followed about a month later by the U.S. State Department lifting its ban on military assistance to the unit, raising questions about the motives behind removal of the webpage.
MMP’s removal of Azov is significant in that it could be used to guide U.S. foreign policy. Though MMP was created and has operated with funding from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the papers written by its researchers are cited in academic research, reports and testimony to Congress, government-funded institutions and initiatives, and federal agencies. The website functions as an authoritative source for information on militant and extremist groups, and their interactions and connections over time. At the very least, Azov’s removal means MMP’s list no longer contradicts the State Department’s decision allowing U.S. military assistance to the group, and therefore cannot be used to criticize it.
The Stanford MMP’s takedown of its Azov profile also may have occurred in part due to pressure from Ukrainian diplomats. Late last week, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova published a post on Facebook celebrating the MMP’s removal of its Azov profile, with a screenshot of the “Page not found” message that appears if one navigates to the Azov MMP profile’s URL.
Curiously, Markarova thanked Stanford for its “response,” and thanked her colleagues at the Ukrainian Embassy and the Association of Families of Azovstal Defenders “for constantly drawing attention and joint fight against Russian propaganda and disinformation,” according to Facebook’s automatic translation of the post. Markarova’s mention of Stanford’s “response” and her diplomats’ “constantly drawing attention” raises the possibility of a Ukrainian pressure campaign, spurred by Ukrainian diplomats, to get the MMP to remove its Azov profile.
The State Department and Markarova could not immediately be reached for comment.
Asked about the removal of Azov’s profile, one of the academics behind MMP, Professor Martha Crenshaw, told Noir: “we plan to update that profile, but I don’t know when the update will be complete.” When asked for more details, including whether militant group profiles are typically taken down during an update process, when the update would be completed, what kinds of updates were being made, and whether Azov’s profile would eventually again be visible on the MMP website, Crenshaw and the other MMP academics provided no specific answers. They also did not clarify whether Ukrainian Ambassador Markarova contacted the MMP about removing its Azov profile.
Founded in March 2014 as a volunteer unit to fight pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region, Azov was subsequently incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, and gained international attention for its role in re-taking the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol from separatist forces in June 2014. During this engagement, Azov also received scrutiny for its neo-Nazi iconography, in particular an inverted Wolfsangel superimposed over a Black Sun (the former an ancient runic symbol appropriated by the Nazis, per the ADL, the latter “based on a design commissioned by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, and overwhelmingly used by neo-Nazi and esoteric National Socialist movements,” according to the MMP’s now-removed Azov Battalion profile).
Azov is part of the broader “Azov Movement,” a network of far-right Ukrainian groups that also includes a political wing, the National Corps (led by Azov founder and notorious white nationalist Andriy Biletsky), which the U.S. State Department called a “nationalist hate group,” and a paramilitary faction, the National Militia, which has attacked Roma and other minority communities in Ukraine.
Azov came to renewed prominence following Russia’s February 2022 invasion due to its high-profile defense of Mariupol that spring. The destructive battle, during which large swaths of Mariupol’s residential infrastructure were damaged or destroyed, ended in a drawn-out siege of the Azovstal steel plant, beneath which surviving Azov and Ukrainian servicemembers retreated until their May 2022 surrender. The battle for Azovstal garnered substantial international media attention due in part to Azov’s use of Starlink terminals to publish videos about the conditions of the Ukrainian defenders.
Azov’s reputation for combat effectiveness and stubborn defense of Mariupol, coupled with a desire to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims of nazism in Ukraine (with one stated goal of the invasion being “denazification”), has motivated many pro-Ukrainian commentators to whitewash the unit’s far-right extremism, claiming the unit has been depoliticized and is now entirely distinct from the volunteer battalion that first emerged a decade ago.
This line has also made its way into mainstream media, exemplified by the Guardian’s reporting that: “The 5,000-plus strong [Azov] brigade has shed any far-right associations, relentlessly emphasized in Russian pre-invasion propaganda.”
This is false. As reported by the Nation, many of Azov’s current leaders, including its Commander Denys Prokopenko and Deputy Commander Sviatoslav Palamar, have years-old ties to far-right groups, and the brigade continues to don Nazi symbols on the battlefield and social media. Indeed, Azov has never stopped using the Wolfsangel symbol, which is still part of its official logo and featured on its X/Twitter page. Azov’s founder, Andriy Biletsky, a blatant white supremacist who reportedly said Ukraine’s national mission was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans],” remains closely connected to the unit despite his supposed departure in fall 2014. In his 2022 book From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right, author and journalist Michael Colborne argues Azov has not divorced itself from the far right, writing that “[d]espite unconvincing efforts to separate the two, it’s clear that the Azov Regiment is part of the broader Azov movement and should not be treated as something distinct from it.”
The extremism of Azov was essentially undisputed among Western institutions and media outlets until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That was true for MMP too. Prior to its removal, MMP’s Azov profile documented in detail the force’s far-right ideology, ties with foreign white supremacist organizations, and use of Nazi symbols.
MMP’s removal of Azov’s profile came a little over a month before the State Department’s decision to lift the longstanding ban on the provision of American weapons to the brigade. The State Department, which originally banned arming Azov due to concerns over its far-right extremism, rescinded this policy because the brigade recently “passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the U.S. Department of State,” as reported by the Washington Post on June 10. While a Congressional ban on military assistance to the “Azov Battalion” remains in place under appropriations laws, the State Department said it didn’t believe the congressional ban applied to the group as it exists today, per the Post.
In fact, the State Department has maintained since at least April 2023 that Azov as currently constituted is a different group from the “Azov Battalion” targeted in the Congressional ban, according to comments from a State Department spokesperson quoted anonymously by the Washington Post. The State Department official said the “Azov Battalion” was a non-state “militia group” that has not existed in over five years, and that Azov is now “a different unit.”
“Leahy vetting” is in reference to the Leahy Law, which prohibits the United States from funding “foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights,” per a State Department fact sheet. In reality, not only is the State Department’s original concern around Azov’s ideological extremism still germane, but the force’s human rights record has remained checkered since its founding as a non-state volunteer militia in 2014. Indeed, Azov has been credibly accused of torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killing, all of which are “gross violations of human rights” that would disqualify a military unit from receiving U.S. military aid, according to the State Department’s interpretation of the Leahy Law. Many of Azov’s alleged human rights abuses, which also include the use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes and looting of civilian homes, occurred after the unit was formally integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard in late 2014.
The proximity of the State Department announcement and the removal of the Azov profile could be coincidental, but MMP’s close ties to the U.S. Government cast doubt on an innocuous explanation.
Stanford launched MMP in 2009 and operated the project until 2012 using funding from the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation. In 2019, MMP received funding from the Department of Homeland Security, per the project’s website. The academics behind MMP also have deep ties to American defense.
Professor Martha Crenshaw, Senior Fellow of Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor Emerita of Government at Wesleyan University, has overseen MMP since it launched. She also served as “lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security” from 2005 to 2017, per the Stanford website.
Iris Malone, who co-directed MMP from 2019 to 2022, simultaneously served as Principal Investigator for a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE). Professor Kaitlyn Robinson, who has served as a researcher with MMP since 2022, formerly worked as a research assistant for the Department of Defense, per her website. Curiously, Robinson described MMP itself as “a member of” NCITE on her website.
It is safe to assume America has lost it’s way, our decline into “ irrelevance “ a certainty. History most certainly will record senile Joe’s Ukie war as the turning point.
“Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion profile quietly removed from Stanford extremist group list”
If you read the article*, you’ll note that there is not a SINGLE thing this group did to ‘reform’ themselves, other than prove they can terrorize and kill Russians in wartime.
*no, I didn’t read the article because I understand the Azovs
“recruitment of far-right foreign fighters”
American or rest-of-the-world “far-right”?
A distinction with a massive difference.
A lib once tried to do some thinking on his own and told me Hitler was a small government guy. The lib “knew” that Hitler was “far-right”. And the lib “knew” that the “far-right” was for small government. So he put some training wheels on his brain and tried to do it himself.
Sadly, he fell off in the rosebushes that time.
no, I didn’t read the article because I understand the Azovs
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Good to see some see what the US is doing. Covering their tracks. Our Congress outlawed funding to the Ukro Nazis way back during McCains days, St Z ran on making Peace with Russia, then the deeply entrenched Ukie Nazis “ talked to “ ( threatened) St Z, they then threw out the Minsk Agreements continued shelling the ethnic Russian provinces, ….and here we are.
Any Nation that has statues of Bandera, name streets after him, honor his memory in their Congress most certainly have a Nazi problem. The US has much blood on its hands.
Never would have thought the US wouldn’t be “the good guys” in a major war, but here we are supporting and training Nazis. They even call them “right-winged”. I’m not on board at all with the way things are going.
A recent FBI indictment of four members of Rise Above Movement (RAM) in Los Angeles specifically cites their contacts with Azov brigade as evidence of their extremism.
I would laugh if the defendants used this removal as part of their defense.
“my father who fought the Nazis in WW2 is rolling in his grave.”
Thousands of hard core Nazis came here as part of “Operation Paperclip”.
Many of them reached high positions within NASA and other parts of the government.
"The Azov Regiment of 2022 bears little relation to the ragtag militia the Azov Battalion of 2014, formed from a few dozen football hooligans, and – yes – far-right extremists."
"Crucially, in late 2014, Azov was absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard, allowing greater state oversight, with considerable attention paid to cleansing the ranks of far-right elements, in what should be recognised as an example of successful deradicalisation."
Much Azov about nothing: How the ‘Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ canard fooled the world
https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2022/08/19/1384992/much-azov-about-nothing-how-the-ukrainian-neo-nazis-canard-fooled-the-world
Much Azov about nothing:
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Nothing, in your eyes. The US Congress outlawed money to the Nazis way back when, their crimes and cruelty well documented in Congressional records.
Carry on War cheerleader, your road leads to destruction.
About now the Zeepers are waking up and we’ll soon see them rerun their claims screaming that THERE ARE NAZIs IN RUSSIA TOO!!!!
Just keep in mind that we’re talking about Nazis integrated into the government, as in running military units. And even if that were true in Russia (as if there are streets named after Hitler in Moscow, LOL), that would still be a GASLIGHTING, since no one is arguing for sending money and weapons to Russia.
I must have hit a nerve. Yes Johnny, the Ukie government has a long history of sleeping with the Nazis. You can’t erase history.
Note the date in the Post #10 attempt at Gaslighting - it was only AFTER the war in Ukraine had started and it became necessary for the this bunch to “Rehabilitate” the Nazis in Ukraine.
Nothing, in your eyes.
Yup, Ukraine "nazis" fighting to the death to defend a Jewish Ukrainian President. Okay
A failure to engage with Ukrainian sources
The Azov-Nazi obsession demonstrates a remarkable failure to engage with Ukrainian sources, including the experiences of its Jewish community, which has long been scathing of the Russian claim that neo-Nazim is widespread in Ukraine.
Likhachev notes from that from 2014-2022 there were exactly zero reports of anti-Semitic incidents committed by Azov in Mariupol, despite the city’s sizeable Jewish community.
Anti-Semitism has little resonance even among more extreme Ukrainian nationalist elements, while polling demonstrates that Ukraine is among the least anti-Semitic and xenophobic countries in central-east Europe.
Ironically, neo-Nazi military units with thousands of soldiers under arms operate openly among the invading Russian forces.
Dmitry Utkin, the founder and commander of Wagner Group, the largest and most infamous Russian mercenary unit, is covered in Nazi tattoos that didn’t preclude him from being awarded Hero of the Russian Federation in 2016, including a photo op alongside Putin himself.
The commander of the affiliated “Rusich” brigade, the notorious sadist Aleksei Milchakov, answered, “I’ll tell you straight up, I’m a Nazi”, when asked in a recent interview about his political convictions.
Further, as Robert Horvath has recorded in his recent monograph, Putin’s Fascists, the Kremlin has actively built ties with neo-Nazi groups inside Russia to police internal dissent.
There is only one side in the war who acts like Nazis-Russians, robbing, raping, torturing and killing civilians and prisoners. They even openly declare they are nazis.
Russian Neo-Nazi Unit Defying Putin's Orders To Cover Up 'War Crimes'
A Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group says it has defied President Vladimir Putin's order to delete a social media post that called for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Task Force Rusich, which has reportedly been actively involved in fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin, said on its Telegram channel it was pressured by Russian officials to delete a post "about the [encouragement] of execution of prisoners."
The group is believed to have had links to the now-dissolved paramilitary outfit the Wagner Group, whose late chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed after his private jet crashed in Russia's Tver region in August 2023.
A Rusich's Telegram post in October 2022 called for the torture of prisoners of war in Ukraine and the "destruction of prisoners on the spot," the Guardian reported at the time.
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-neo-nazi-rusich-telegram-putin-war-crimes-1873703
So cute, but I agree, we should cut off funding and weapons to Russia too!
We need to help the NAZIs and the gay dancer president who suspended all elections—with hundreds of billions of US dollars and equipment,
Who better to use our money and weapons but a gay dancer and NAZIs?
We've gone insane. No peace agreement—just fund the gay dancer and all NAZIs.
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