Thread by @leonidragozin

THREAD: The scene of attack by members of Azov movement on the car of ex-president Poroshenko in 2019. The man in the green Reconquista T-shirt is Rodion Batulin who worked with the supposedly assassinated Vitaly Shishov at the Belarusian House in Kiev.

Next to him is Nikita “Odissey” Makeev, a Russia neo-nazi and a senior PR person at National Corps, Azov movement’s political wing. The reason for attack was Poroshenko’s failure to grant Ukrainian citizenship to Azov fighters.

But Poroshenko did grant Ukrainian citizenship to their boss, Belarusian/Russian neo-nazi Sergey Korotkikh. During his Belarusian years, Korotkikh was part of the local cell of Russian National Unity whose senior members were implicated in the murders of Lukashenko’s opponents.

Reconquista on Batulin’s T-shirt stands for two things. Firstly, it is Azov movement’s ideology of reclaiming Europe for the white race. Secondly, it is an MMA fighting club in Kiev associated with Korotkikh.

A national of Latvia, Batulin is an MMA fighter. He won Latvian MMA championship in 2013.

A day after Vitaly Shishov was found hanged in Kiev, Batulin was banned from entering Ukraine for three years on the orders of SBU. Officials don’t comment on the reasons, citing secrecy.

In 2014, Batulin took part in a fight organised by Russian/German neo-nazi MMA promoter Denis “White Rex” Nikitin. The latter is also closely linked to Reconquista club in Kiev.

In Latvia, Batulin belonged to CK Profesionālis fighting club in Rīga. Another Latvian MMA fighter who ended up in Azov, Yury “Slavyanin” Vishnevetsky (Juris Višnevetskis), also belonged to that club.

Vishnevetsky was killed by Ukrainian security agents in July 2016 after a group of Azov fighters, including two Russian nationals, tried to rob Oshchadbank’s armoured vehicle. The foiled robbery resulted in a dangerous standoff between Azov regiment and Ukrainian security forces.

Vitaly Shishov’s death made a few people recall the 2015 murder of another associate of Korotkikh, the chief of Azov regiment’s legal department, Yaroslav Babych. He was found hanged in his flat with signs of torture. His widow blames Korotkikh for his murder.

Korotkikh’s own reaction to Shishov’s death was interesting. He first shared a post suggesting that it was not Lukashenko, but the “collective West” that was responsible for the presumed assassination. Azov’s conflict with the Belarusian antifa was cited as the reason.

A few hours later, Korotkikh was claiming that it was definitely Lukashenko and definitely not the Russian FSB who is responsible for the murder. FSB was named as the likely culprit by Bellingcat’s researcher Hristo Grozev.

Korotkikh’s biography features presumed links to both the FSB and the Belarusian KGB. In Ukraine, he operated under the patronage of the recently dismissed interior minister Arsen Avakov. End of thread.