THREAD on Azov movement personalities arrested in the latest SBU sweep in Kharkiv. Not among them, but worth mentioning first, is Artem Moshensky, who was shot in the neck on June 30 and transported in a private plane to a hospital in Israel.
Moshensky was one of the leaders of the East Corps, an Azov movement outfit in Kharkiv. The main leader was Oleh Shiryayev, who later split from Azov movement and formed the paramilitary force of Viktor Medvedchuk’s pro-Russian party OPZZh.
Azov movement leader Andriy Biletsky blamed Shiryayev for the assassination attempt. Shiryayev blamed Biletsky. Shiryayev got arrested on July 6. On Aug 2, SBU clamped down on his pro-Russian paramilitary force.
ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-nei…
The most prominent of the Azovians arrested in the latest sweep is Serhiy Velychko. From Metallist Kharkiv ultras milieu like most of them, Velychko is famously the author of Putin Khuylo (Putin is a prick) patriotic chant.
Less famously, Velychko was a co-founder of the security company AzGuard (Azov Guard). The other co-founder is Maksym Zhorin, a top figure of the pan-Ukrainian Azov movement. AzGuard’s adverts featured a phone number containing the cyphered Heil Hitler salute - 1488.
AzGuard’s logo copycats that of Wotanjugend - a Russian neo-nazi platform formed around the MOLOTH (Hitler’s Hammer) black metal band, which moved to Ukraine in 2015. Its lead singer Aleksey Levkin became one of Azov’s ideologists.
Another arrested Azovian is Serhiy Kozlyuk, who badly wounded cameraman Vadym Makaryuk in clashes at Barabashova market in Kharkiv in 2019. The screenshot shows him shooting at Makaruyk, who ended up in intensive care where he additionally suffered a stroke.
Kozlyuk went on trial after this incident, but as often happens with the far right going on trial in Ukraine, I can’t find any clues as to how it all ended. He was obviously free when arrested in the SBU sweep.
Also among the arrested is Artem Subochev, who injured a patrol policeman in Kharkiv in 2016. Local media noted at the time that he appeared in social networks under the nick fcmk1488 and his posts were full of photos showing people making nazi salute.
The last of the arrestees for now is Kyrilo Krikunov, who won Kharkiv police championship in sambo (a Soviet martial art) in 2017 as part of the East Corps team. He was evidently an employee of Ukrainian police at the time, like many Azovians.
nackor.org/ru/vita-mo-pob…
I’ll continue this thread when I find out more about other arrested members of what SBU describes as a crime group involved in racketeering. Local press claims that they primarily targeted funeral businesses, a highly criminalised sphere in all ex-Soviet countries.

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More from @leonidragozin

5 Aug
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. Image
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. Image
Read 12 tweets
31 Jul
Not sure which sick mind is allowing Oleh Kustovsky’a cartoons on the US-funded RFERL website, but this level of dehumanizing xenophobia is simply mesmerising (and worth a thread). Here, Russian-speaking cockroaches are running away as Ukraine reads a book in Ukrainian language.
Here, a Russian-speaking untermensch insists on watching Svaty (a Ukrainian comedy series produced by country’s current Russian-speaking president) in Russian, while a healthy family watches all films with Ukrainian subtitles.
Here, the highspeed train of Poroshenko’s language law, aimed at squeezing Russian language out of public sphere, is taking over the ramshackle Russian steamer driven by Putin. Of course forced assimilation of minorities is the fastest and most direct route to the EU.
Read 7 tweets
4 May
Olga Misik, 19, made herself famous by reading the constitution to riot policemen. She is now facing two years in prison. Sentence due on May 11. In her final word, she says that she was inspired by Sophie Scholl, an antifascist executed by nazis in 1943.
docs.google.com/document/d/19v…
“The fascist regime [in Germany] fell, just like the fascist regime in Russia will also fall one day. I don’t know when it happens - in a week, in a year or in a decade. But I know that one day we will prevail, because love and youth always prevail,” writes Olga Misik.
Like everywhere else in Eastern Europe, Russian liberals and quasi-liberals have been flirting and continue to flirt with nationalism and US-styled right-wing populism. But there is a healthy strain that formulates things as they are - here is fascism and we need to fight it.
Read 5 tweets
14 Apr 19
Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Parubiy, endorses an appeal by far-right politicians and activists to prevent Zelensky’s election win, which they see as a revanche for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
Once a “social-nationalist”, Parubiy started his political career in Lviv’s far-right milieu. He later moved on to join Yulia Tymoshenko’s mainstream party, but old links remain as was evident during Maidan revolution and remains evident now.
There are many reasonable questions and doubts about Zelensky’s presidential bid, namely his oligarchic links and inexperience, but there is precious little to support the conspiracy theory about him being “pro-Russian”.
Read 5 tweets
12 Mar 19
Ha, that’s a new, Ukraine. TV debates between rival neo-nazis - Karas of C14 and Korotkikh of National Corps/Azov on Zik channel. Subject: Whom to jail for corruption. A step up from quasi-academic discussions of white reconquista on Azov radio. Screenshot via Roman Huba.
When he lived in Russia, Korotkikh founded National Socialist Society (NSO), one of the largest nazi groups in Russian history. Members of its offshoot, NSO-Sever, were jailed for multiple murders of immigrants and even some of their own.
A native of Belarus, Korotkikh was granted Ukrainian citizenship by president Poroshenko. In the picture he appears to be making “from heart to the sun” gesture - a crypto-fascist substitute for Sieg Heil.
Read 5 tweets
25 Sep 18
So this is Olena Semenyaka, an ideologist for Azov’s National Corps, being shown around the Latvian parliament by Dace Kalnina of NA, a government coalition party. Semenyaka is interesting not just because of her posing on photos with a swastika flag or fascist thinker Dugin>>>
She also spells out Azov’s geopolitical plan, which she calls Reconquista. The idea is that upon defeating Russia, Ukraine should proceed to claim its territory and then entire Europe for the white race. Listen to her presenting the project on Azov radio. mixcloud.com/a_radio/azov-f…
She sees Ukraine as the leading force in a future superstate, which will include all of Eastern and Central Europe as well as present-day Russia (divided into many ethnic states). She calls the project Intermarium, since it would spread from the Baltic to Black Sea.
Read 7 tweets

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