[28][29][30][31][32] Nationalism researcher Andreas Umland wrote that the Azov was created by "an obscure lunatic fringe group of racist activists" and has "a contradictory, if not paradoxical history of cooperation" between organizations involved in its creation – Social-National Assembly, Patriot of Ukraine, Misanthropic Division, Bratstvo, anti-Euromaidan and Russian neo-Nazi figures.

[30][44][42] During March 2014, as the unrest in Kharkiv worsened, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Militsiya pulled out from the city, the Black Corps started to patrol the streets, protecting pro-Ukrainian activists and attacking pro-Russian ones.

[30] By April, during the initial phases of the war in Donbas, the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered a number of defeats and setbacks against the separatists, as they were ill-prepared, ill-equipped, lacking in professionalism, morale, and fighting spirit, and with severe incompetence in the high command.

[103][104] On 27 April 2016, 300 troops and light armored vehicles from the regiment were assigned to Odesa to safeguard public order after Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili wrote in social media about a rash of pro-Russian "titushki" attacks on civilians.

Before the conflict, Azov was the subject of a propaganda war: Russia used the regiment's official incorporation into the National Guard of Ukraine as one of the proofs for its portrait of the Ukrainian government and military as under Nazi control, with "denazification" as a key casus belli.

[110][111] The regiment, on the other hand, was noted for its ability to self-promote, producing high quality videos of its drone strikes and other military activities; The Daily Telegraph called it a "well-oiled publicity machine".

Following orders from the high command, over the next few days Azov members in Azovstal, including Prokopenko, surrendered to Russian forces among ~2.5k Ukrainian soldiers from the plant, and were taken to Russian-controlled territory of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Prominent Russian lawmakers, Anatoly Wasserman and Vyacheslav Volodin, called on the government to deny prisoner exchanges for members of the Azov Regiment, and try them in Russia as "nazi war criminals" instead.

[153] According to international human rights law professor Christina Binder at the Bundeswehr University Munich, despite Russia leaving the Council of Europe in March 2022, its provisions are effective for an additional 6 months.

Reconnaissance and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) units were considered the elite of Azov and were manned by the most experienced personnel (typically, former Ukrainian Army special forces or similar).

All this means that while Western governments should keep a watchful eye on foreign fighter flows to Ukraine, they must also counter Russian disinformation efforts that massively inflate the presence of right-wing extremists on the Ukrainian side.

[175] In November 2022, four members of the neo-Nazi subversive group "Order of Hagal" were arrested by the Italian police, and for one suspect who could not be found "investigative activity showed that he was in contact with the Azov battalion".

Both entities have admitted to being part of the wider "Azov Movement" led by Biletsky, who worked directly with Arsen Avakov (Minister of the Interior until July 2021) on matters relating to the regiment.

[224][225] According to commentary by far right watcher Vyacheslav Likhachev, Biletsky's main goal is to exploit the Azov "trademark" in political life, and that although it is no secret that he was in touch with the regiment, his role is limited to an informal one.

[242][240] The Jerusalem Post carried an article in October 2021 that cited Kuzmenko's report on the group, which stated that it is "led by people with ties to" the Azov movement and that its members received training from Western countries while at the NAA.

"[246] A report from January 2015 stated that a Donetsk People's Republic supporter was detained and tortured with electricity and waterboarding and struck repeatedly on his genitals, which resulted in his confessing to spying for pro-Russian militants.

[22] In 2014, the German ZDF television network showed images of Azov fighters wearing helmets with swastika symbols and "the SS runes of Hitler's infamous black-uniformed elite corps".

[272] Andreas Umland, a scholar from the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, told Deutsche Welle that though it had far-right connotations, the Wolfsangel was not considered a fascist symbol by the population in Ukraine.

[255] In a 2020 Atlantic Council article, Bellingcat's Oleskiy Kuzmenko wrote that the far right in general significantly damaged Ukraine's international reputation creating a vulnerability to hostile narratives that exaggerate its role.

The then Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov claimed that "The shameful information campaign about the alleged spread of Nazi ideology (among Azov members) is a deliberate attempt to discredit the 'Azov' unit and the National Guard of Ukraine.

[277] In the years following its integration into the National Guard, a number of experts and commentators have stated that the radical right-wing ideology associated with the battalion has become more marginal, or that it does not make sense to describe it as a "neo-Nazi" regiment.

[253] Vyacheslav Likhachev, another leading expert on the far right, writing for a blog called The Ukrainian View, stated in May 2022 that there are no grounds for describing Azov as a neo-Nazi unit, underlining that "by the end of 2014, most far-right fighters left the regiment.

[287] In late February 2022, the Ukrainian National Guard released a video appearing to show an Azov fighter greasing bullets in pig fat to be used against the Kadyrovites, the forces of Ramzan Kadyrov (since Chechens are often Muslim and pork consumption is forbidden by Islamic law).

[302] In October 2019, members of the US House of Representatives from the Democratic Party requested that the Azov Regiment and two other far-right groups be classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US State Department, citing recent acts of right-wing violence such as the Christchurch mosque shootings earlier that year.

[117][307] It was lifted after, according to the United States Government in Washington, there was no evidence of any human rights violations and also to bolster the brigade’s fighting capacity at a challenging time during the war against Russia’s invasion, with Ukraine struggling amid persistent shortages of ammunition and personnel.

[313] In 2022, The Jerusalem Post raised concerns about the MATADOR anti-tank weapon, co-developed by Germany, Israel and Singapore, being shown in videos fired by a fighter from what it characterized as "the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion".

According to the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, this was part of a broader narrative surrounding Muslim soldiers in various units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, most notably Crimean Tatars.

Chief Spokesman Igor Konashenkov of Russia's Ministry of Defense claimed: "It was these Azov Battalion Nazis who had been exterminating civilian population in Donetsk and Luhansk republics, deliberately and with exceptional cruelty, for eight years.

[345] In 2023 Russia began criminal prosecutions against members of the Azov Regiment, on the charges of involvement in a terrorist organization and taking part in action to overthrow the Russia-backed authorities in the Donetsk region.

"[349] An OSCE report of December 2023 stated that "trials have raised questions as to their fairness, impartiality and independence, and appear to violate a range of IHL rules, including that combatants cannot be prosecuted merely for their participation in hostilities, as well as the prohibitions on exposing POWs to public curiosity, on subjecting them to ill-treatment and on coercing admissions of guilt.