Editor’s Note: The Renew Democracy Initiative—publisher of The Next Move—is in Ukraine! We’ll be sharing daily dispatches from our delegation. Premium subscribers will receive each subsequent Ukraine Dispatch 24 hours before anyone else. Be the first to get on-the-ground news from the frontlines of freedom by upgrading to join our premium subscriber community today! All proceeds go to support the work of the Renew Democracy Initiative, including humanitarian assistance to communities in Ukraine.
Uriel Epshtein is the CEO of the Renew Democracy Initiative, which publishes The Next Move.
Our train pulls into Kyiv in the early morning.
Eating breakfast sitting down feels like a real luxury after more than 24 hours of travel. Staying in an upscale hotel like ours would mark the start of a relaxing vacation in any other country, but we are not on vacation, and this country is at war.
We leave behind the creature comforts of our hotel for a stark reminder of that war. We’re on our way to a training base frequently used by the Azov Brigade.
If the name Azov provokes a little bit of discomfort, you’re not alone. The Azov Brigade was formed to protect the city of Mariupol when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Back then, the unit gained international notoriety for attracting a number of far-right ultra-nationalists to its ranks.
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The Kremlin seized upon Azov’s nationalist pedigree to push the narrative that it was “de-Nazifying” Ukraine in order to protect Russian speakers and other minorities.
Our host on the base is a heavily tattooed Azov commander in his early thirties. Let’s call him Arkadiy (for security purposes, we’re concealing his identity).
Arkadiy concedes that there were far-right punks in Azov when the first invasion began. Football hooligans—violent soccer fans always itching for a fight—were typical of the regiment’s first recruits.
What the Russian talking points always glided over was the fact that Azov was formed in response to a war of aggression. The brigade has changed as Ukraine has westernized over the past decade. Moscow’s stale propaganda has remained the same.
Case in point: Renew Democracy Initiative’s local contact, the man who connected us to Arkadiy, the Azov commander, is an observant Jew. When we arrive on the base, our Jewish guide and Arkadiy embrace, and the language they banter in is… Russian (typical of Ukrainian Jews and people from eastern Ukraine). Between my name and my conspicuous star of David, there’s no missing the fact that I’m Jewish too. The commander treats me as a friend.
I’m watching Vladimir Putin’s disinformation unravel in real time. These are no Nazis.
The evidence of Azov’s evolution goes beyond this anecdote. Once a volunteer militia, Azov has been folded into the National Guard of Ukraine and professionalized. Today, it is an elite unit carrying prestige comparable to America’s Army Rangers. Jews, Muslims, and other minorities serve with Azov. Ukraine isn’t perfect (what country is?). Yet it’s especially rich for the Russians—from whom we get the word pogrom—to position themselves as the great defenders of Ukrainian Jewry.
It’s people like our Azov host who are protecting Ukrainians of all faiths and backgrounds and ensuring a prosperous and free tomorrow.
Arkadiy shares his own personal story serving in the Azov Brigade. He’s not even a decade out of college. RDI has a young team—two of my colleagues are the exact same age as this guy—yet our experiences are so vastly different.
I remember watching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine unfold—on TV and on social media. Arkadiy lived it. On the morning of February 24, 2022, he was on vacation. He returned to Mariupol as quickly as he could to join his comrades.
My new Azov friend relates his experiences in combat. When the Russians forced Ukraine to retreat from Mariupol, Arkadiy was seriously wounded by a landmine. I’ll spare you the gorier details: He was ultimately taken prisoner by Russian soldiers. Despite his extensive injuries, Arkadiy’s Russian captors tortured him. He languished with a mangled leg, while the Russians denied him treatment. They wouldn’t even give him painkillers. They wanted him to go on record and denounce supposed Ukrainian “war crimes.”
Through it all, the only thing this soldier was afraid of was that any forced “confession” would bring shame to his grieving mother. He expected to die anyway.
Arkadiy never broke. He never gave the Russians the “confession” they craved. Through a prisoner swap, he made it back and ultimately recovered. He’s even returned to combat.
Our Azov hosts walk us through some live-fire exercises. This isn’t my first time shooting a rifle, but the weight of the gun together with the gear is more than I expected. Arkadiy remarks that he doesn’t want us to just fire while standing still because real combat is dynamic—a blur of motion. We have to be moving—kneeling, lying down, jumping up.
(The one thing we are not allowed to do is run. Arkadiy weathered torture and deadly combat, but he isn’t quite bold enough to let our untrained group shoot while running. I don’t blame him! There’s a difference between being brave and having a death wish.)
Drilling with the Azov Brigade is a good reminder that what we are doing isn’t just for sport. It’s all well and good to talk about lofty concepts like liberal democracy. Ukrainians are fighting for it.
We’re on our way to Irpin next. It’s an upscale suburb of Kyiv that Russia occupied during the first weeks of the war. The devastation that the Russian marauders left behind when they retreated from the capital region is the reason people like Arkadiy are willing to endure unbearable pain and hardship in order to secure victory for Ukraine—and for the entire Free World.
Contrary to Russian propaganda, the courageous men of the Azov Brigade are not Nazis. But they are nationalists. You have to be proud of your nation in order to face death for it.
Thank you for this report and insight into the situation.
Sociopath Cheeto: American Fascists Don’t Get A Fair Shake With The Press
Laments come in all forms from Cheeto and his Nazi allies especially when they do bad things like killing American citizens, getting Delta Airlines to deport children and families to concentration camps(BTW boycott Delta), financial corruption in Cheeto’s regime(Lewandowski scandal), overpaying and using taxpayer $$$ for warehouses to be turned into concentration camps(as much as $50 to 100M) as happened in Utah supported by a corrupt Nazi Republican governor, an illegal war with Iran prompted by fascist Israeli Netanyahu, cratering the global economy, TSA waits due to Cheeto not wanting the funding until the SAVE Act passed(according to Cheeto “have to do it for….wait for it…Jesus!), ICE agents at airports with nothing to do, 2M Americans don’t have health insurance due to the Nazi Republican policy, Fed reserve reports zero job creation over the last 6mo, seizing ballots in California and Georgia, tried to indict 6 Congresspeople because they spoke up about military rights, killed 80+ in small boats claiming that they were narcoterroists without evidence
Have you heard enough? Meanwhile when Nazis are out on other less protected forums than they encounter on the Fox or other propaganda channels, they flail not answering commentator questions or misrepresenting facts or plan lying Truly tedious to listen to these fascists
These statements of “why do we(the fascsts) get such a raw deal from the press?” This blatant use of the victim card which has been the hallmark of Nazi Republican politics over the last 5 decades is now clearly been overplayed and WE the People are not only tired of it but refuse to believe the lies And it’s all the more reason that the press reliably cover these corrupt fascists in a way that’s appropriate to report this corrupt fascist regime