He was the first commander of the volunteer militia Azov Battalion,[4][1] which he founded in 2014, and a co-founder of the nationalist movement Social-National Assembly.

[18] His major patriotic influence in his youth was his father's gift of a book prohibited in the Soviet Union, History of Ukraine for Children by Anton Lototsky [uk].

[citation needed] On 12 March 2014, Biletsky became a party leader in special operations for the "Right Sector - East," which included such regions as Poltava, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts.

The battalion was initially composed of members of the Patriot of Ukraine, Social-National Assembly, football fans (notably Dynamo Kyiv supporters) and the AutoMaidan movement.

According to British military reporter Askold Krushelnycky, "Biletsky was cool in the evaluation of actions and giving orders calmly and, in my opinion, logically".

On 27 September 2014, he ran as an independent candidate in the 217th electoral district (Kyiv) for the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election and won by receiving 31,445 votes (33.75%).

[citation needed] In an interview to LB.ua (Left Bank) given on 10 December 2014, Biletsky announced that the Patriot of Ukraine suspended its activities as a political organization due to the war, and would be absorbed primarily into the Azov Battalion.

[30][31][32] According to a research of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, published in August 2017, Biletsky did not write any laws that were adopted in the Verkhovna Rada.

[33][34][35] In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was placed 2nd on the joined list of Svoboda with the far-right National Corps, the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh and Right Sector.

[38] The brigade has appeared regularly in the news due to its performance in combat, partly founded in successful recruiting and training.

[40][41][42][5] In 2010, Biletsky reportedly said that the Ukrainian nation's mission is to "lead the white races of the world in a final crusade...against Semite-led Untermenschen".

[48] Until 2011 Biletsky was in favour of forming a confederation between Russia and Ukraine, with Kyiv as its capital, according to BBC News Ukrainian.

In 2014, he was accused of being an "actual neo-Nazi" by sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko [uk] because of his involvement in Patriot of Ukraine and Azov.

[54] Umland and Fedorenko wrote in 2021 that he still publicly objects to multiculturalism, but has stated "to be a Ukrainian nationalist today is to believe in values, not racial prejudice", and announced that his party does not use ethnicity to define who can, or cannot, be part of the nation Ukraine.