Since it's a political organization with stated political goals, it might make sense to look at those goals. Not to mention that even with those goals they didn't manage to break into parliament, i.e. reach 2% of the votes (if we are talking about "the rise of nazism in Ukraine", btw). Right now you're going "symbol scary!". By that logic German AfD, the French Front Nationale, or UKIP are totally above board in that respect...

> Ukrainians and Russians are mostly ethnically slavs, ugh.

Thanks for your racial theories...

> Oh please, it's like claiming that Duke Nukem is a represantative origin of women's rights in the US.

It was indicative of the culture though. This is why today you won't see a popular game with such rhetoric as Duke Nukem anymore. But Russians still don't realize Brat 2 is racist.

> Since it's a political organization with stated political goals

Who cares about it's recent political pivoting? Why are you trying to stir the discussion away from the fact that Azov first and foremost in its recent origin is a military organisation born of banal street-level neonazi skinhead sorts? It's not your typical US Republican or German AfD talks-kinda-maybe-like-nazi-apologist, it's an actual physical organizied force.

And the scandal of integrating it into Ukraine's National Guard back when it was openly waving the Third Reich's symbolics tells us quite a lot of its role in post-revolution Ukraine power structure.

> Right now you're going "symbol scary!". By that logic German AfD, the French Front Nationale, or UKIP are totally above board in that respect...

Are any of these also military organizations at their core? And specifically, what symbols so commonly associated with the Thrid Reich are they using?

> Thanks for your racial theories...

Beg your pardon? You were the one to bring up the topic of ethnicity, not me.

> It was indicative of the culture though. This is why today you won't see a popular game with such rhetoric as Duke Nukem anymore.

Duke Nukem had a reboot and an aniversary edition a few years ago... And the abundance of wierd rape fanasy porn games on Steam doesn't really add up.

> But Russians still don't realize Brat 2 is racist.

Is this a verifiable claim? Cuz you're referring to a 20 smth y.o. lowlife trashy criminal drama, not some "Brat N+1". Is it any different from a movie like La Haine (1995)?

> Who cares about it's recent political pivoting?

People who vote for them.

You have zero evidence that the regiment follows a neonazi agenda. Neither does the National Guard, the Army, nor the government. Not to mention that Azov itself is multiethnic.

Russians on the other hand have filtration camps and TV hosts on government channels call for nuclear war, ethnic cleansing and destruction of the Ukrainian national identity. Thank god they have nice logos though, otherwise they'd seem like Nazis! /s

> Beg your pardon? You were the one to bring up the topic of ethnicity, not me.

I didn't make any ethnic assertions. You started the "brothers slavs" trope.

> And specifically, what symbols so commonly associated...

Again, "symbol scary". Azov has no stated political goals against any minority / groups of population. AfD has. FN has. UKIP has.

> Duke Nukem had a reboot and an aniversary edition a few years ago...

Are they as popular as the original then?

> Is this a verifiable claim?

Ask a russian.

> People who vote for them.

And why would we care about them, at least in context of this specific discussion?

> You have zero evidence that the regiment follows a neonazi agenda.

The evidence is plenty, although might feel inaccessable when naive-googling without setting filter to before the great post-truth of 2022.

Azov recruiting neonazis:

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/ukraine-deutsche-soel...

Azov being your typical far-right brute force thugs, targeting identity groups:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-far-right-vigilantes-destroy... https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-azov-right-wing-militia-to-p... https://khpg.org/en/1517275970

They even have their own hitlerjugend: https://youtu.be/CpV16BQfbrQ

And we've already discussed the symbolics that you were so fast to dismiss. I'm sorry, but if it's recruiting neonazis, dresses as neonazis and operates like neonazis, it's neonazis. I'm not sure what argument could be made here.

The government is a whole another matter. Sure, Israel is not happy with some of its politics, and the Odessa fires incident (specifically the investigation of it) doesn't inspire confidence, but it's hard to clearly distinct policy of one from the network effect of turing a militant skinheads brigade into glorified policie.

> I didn't make any ethnic assertions. You started the "brothers slavs" trope.

Trope? Slavic people were historicaly kinda disjointed, I am not sure where you had inferred all that "brother" stuff from.

> Again, "symbol scary". Azov has no stated political goals against any minority / groups of population. AfD has. FN has. UKIP has.

I dunno, their statements seem pretty clear to me: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/ultranationali...

> Are they as popular as the original then?

Correcting for the explosive expansion of the industry, yeah, I'd say the genre had marked itself pretty solidly.

> Ask a russian.

So you actually have no idea?

So you cherry pick facts from the time when they weren't even a formal group or cleaned up by the National Guard, you disingenuously then equate Azov battalion with a random ultra-right march from 2019 and refuse to acknowledge or educate yourself about the literal ethnofascist policies of russia. Well done.

I'm aware of their failed legitimate attempts to establish a presence in the government. I'm not trying to saying Ukraine is turning to nazism or fascism (I also don't know that much about their politics). But I imagine that 2% of military-minded, [semi-]trained and armed people is enough to wreck havoc on civilian regions.

Do you assume AfD electorate in Germany is also "military minded, semi-trained and armed"?