Canada trained elements of Ukrainian regiment linked to the extreme right
The Azov Regiment has benefited from the training offered to the Ukrainian military despite Canada's promise never to go down that road.
Canadian and Ukrainian soldiers participate in training. Canadian soldiers from Operation Unifier trained members of the Ukrainian National Guard in Zolochiv in November 2020. Photo: Apr Melissa Gloude, Canadian Armed Forces
Simon Coutu
at 2:00 am
Canada has spent nearly $1 billion to train Ukrainian forces since 2014. Military personnel from the Azov regiment, known for its links with the far right, have benefited from this training, according to documents analyzed by Radio-Canada.
Founded by a notorious neo-Nazi, the Azov regiment became known for its feats of arms in 2014 against the pro-Russian separatists, particularly in Mariupol, where it is fighting again today. Moreover, with the repositioning of Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine, the battalion may have a central role to play in future fighting.
When Vladimir Putin said he wanted to "denazify" Ukraine by invading the country, he was referring to this controversial unit. While the battalion's membership has diversified since its integration into the Ukrainian National Guard (NGU), it still has links to the far right.
It is because of these fascist affiliations that Ottawa has in fact repeated since 2015 that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will never provide or have provided training or support to this regiment or affiliated units.
Yet photos taken at the Zolochiv training center of the Ukrainian National Guard in western Ukraine show otherwise. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) did help train soldiers of the Azov Regiment in 2020, to the point where the unit now boasts that it can train its own soldiers to Western standards.
In two photos posted on Ukrainian National Guard (New Window) social networks on November 20, 2020, two soldiers can be seen wearing a patch provided by the Azov Regiment on their uniforms as they participate in training with the CAF. This is the emblem of the Spartan test, a tournament with strength events. The patch is also emblazoned with the Azov Regiment's logo, which evokes the Wolfsangel, a symbol that was used by several Nazi units.
In this photo posted on the Ukrainian National Guard's social networks, a soldier is seen wearing an Azov Regiment patch while participating in training with the Canadian military. Photo: Ukrainian National Guard. Photomontage: Charlie Debons, CBC
In this photo posted on the social networks of the Ukrainian National Guard, a serviceman is seen wearing a patch of the Azov regiment, while participating in training with the Canadian military. Photo: Ukrainian National Guard. Photomontage: Charlie Debons, Radio-Canada
According to Oleksiy Kuzmenko, a journalist specializing in the Ukrainian far right, the presence of these patches strongly suggests that the Azov Regiment had access to Canadian military training.
"The patch in question is firmly and exclusively associated with the Azov Regiment," he says. "This evidence demonstrates that the Canadian military did not put in place mechanisms that would prevent this far-right military unit from accessing Western aid provided to military and security forces," says the reporter, who works with the online investigative media outlet
Bellingcat among others.
Adrien Nonjon, a researcher at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) and a specialist in Ukraine, the far right and Ukrainian nationalism, also recognizes this symbol in the photos.
"I can assure you with absolute certainty that it is an Azov crest," he notes. "This regiment presents itself as an elite formation and tries to instill this model of surpassing oneself in its fighters. That said, one can also imagine that the individual wearing this patch is a former member of the regiment."
In another image taken during the same training, this time by a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) photographer, a Ukrainian soldier is seen wearing a patch in the colors of the 14th Waffen-SS division, created in 1943 by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime to fight the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) with Ukrainian volunteers.
A ceremony to pay tribute to this division has been condemned in 2021 by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In this photo taken by the Canadian Armed Forces, a Ukrainian soldier is seen wearing a 14th Waffen-SS division patch. Photo: Apr Melissa Gloude, Canadian Armed Forces. Photomontage: Charlie Debons, Radio-Canada
Although historically this division of the Waffen-SS did not participate in the massacres of Jews in Ukraine during World War II, the image of the golden lion and the three crowns is very controversial.
"There's no getting away from it: [the Waffen-SS] is a bunch of Nazis," says University of Ottawa professor and Chair in Ukrainian Studies Dominique Arel. "As a division, they were created too late to participate in the Holocaust and were used as cannon fodder by the Germans. But the symbolism is still strong. The SS is the most criminal group of the 20th century."
Operation Unifier
Since 2015, Canada has helped train 33,346 candidates from Ukraine's Security Forces, including 1951 elements of the NGU, as part of Operation Unifier,
according to the Department of National Defense. The cost of this program is more than $890 million. Every six months, about 200 CAF personnel rotate to provide security force training assistance. All of these personnel have been temporarily relocated to Poland until conditions permit training to resume.
The Canadian military worked with the Ukrainian National Guard Training Center in Zolochiv from Feb. 20, 2019, to Feb. 13, 2022, according to the CAF.
When asked about the presence of these patches on the uniforms of Ukrainian servicemen during a training conducted by the CAF, the Department of National Defense formally denied having trained members of the Azov Regiment.
"The Canadian Armed Forces never gave any training whatsoever to the members of the Azov Battalion," the Department of National Defense assures by email. "Military personnel participating in Op Unifier have always been instructed not to train with or have any contact with members of the Azov Battalion."
The department spokesperson agrees, however, that "Op Unifier members do not exercise any oversight over those selected to attend courses or training sessions."
Members of the Ukrainian National Guard undergo a training session from Canadian soldiers from Operation Unifier on Jan. 22, 2021. Photo: Apr Melissa Gloude, Canadian Armed Forces
According to the department, it is Ukraine's responsibility to conduct the required checks on military personnel in training.
"The Canadian Armed Forces has no authority or mandate to investigate military personnel from other countries. However, Op Unifier personnel have always had the obligation and right to request command staff at Ukrainian training facilities or military academies to remove from courses taught or supervised by members of the Canadian Armed Forces any Ukrainian soldier they suspect is inadequate from the perspective of Canadian values or international law."
Contacted by email, a representative of the NGU denied that elements of the Azov Regiment could have participated in training with Canadian military personnel, despite the regiment's distinctive patches seen in their own photos. "As for the period you mention [November 2020], this unit did not exercise there," a spokesman wrote. "And this piece is not part of their uniform."
Members of the Azov Regiment did not respond to our email and Telegram inquiries.
Members of the Azov regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard as well as activists from the far-right National Corps party and the radical Right Sector group took part in a rally to mark the Day of the Defenders of Ukraine, in Kiev, October 2016. Photo: Reuters / Gleb Garanich
Forming Azov on the fly
On August 18, 2021, a statement published on the website of the NGU further advanced that elements of the Azov regiment (also known as "special detachment of military unit 3057") received training from instructors trained in a program developed with the participation of representatives of the Operation Unifier, called "PR-1".
"The first group of fighters from military unit 3057 began training under the program of basic training of soldiers according to the standards of NATO [...]," it reads. "Such a course in Ukraine is held only at the Training Center of the Ukrainian National Guard in Zolochiv [...]. The program of basic training of soldiers is the first step in the growth of the professional training system of the National Guard of Ukraine. It was developed jointly with representatives of Operation Unifier according to the standards of NATO."
A statement published on the Azov regiment's website in August 2021 said that 35 fighters participated in the training.
In October, Azov boasted that it was training 33 cadets under the PR-1 program, but this time at its own facilities, thanks to the training received in Zolochiv. It also mentions that "for the next course, the instructors are ready to accept twice as many military personnel and to provide such training regularly".
When asked about this training offered by Azov instructors, "developed with representatives of Operation Unifier according to the standards of NATO", the Canadian Department of National Defence said "we are not aware of it".
The NGU and all its sub-organizations, such as the Zolochiv Training Center - where the Canadian Armed Forces members were operating - "were always fully aware and agreed that the Department of National Defense and the CAF would not train or have contact with members of the Azov Regiment," a spokesperson says by email. "In addition, the [Ukrainian National Guard] has always agreed to take measures to avoid interactions."
The Ukrainian National Guard did not respond to our request on this matter.
Depoliticized or neo-fascist?
The Azov Regiment, which is involved in the defense of the city of Mariupol, which has been devastated by the Russian army, is a highly controversial unit in Ukraine, as elsewhere.
The Russian authorities use the spectre of Azov to justify the invasion of Ukraine. In a speech broadcast a few minutes before the invasion began on February 24, Vladimir Putin said he was seeking to "demilitarize and denazify Ukraine", even though the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish. On March 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov justified the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol by the presence of the "Azov Battalion and other radicals" there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he seeks to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine during a televised speech on Feb. 24, 2022. Photo: Associated Press
Created by the neo-Nazi Andriy Biletsky, the Azov regiment is said by its founder to have 10,000 fighters out of the 200,000 soldiers in the Ukrainian army.
It is therefore a minority entity, far from what Vladimir Putin's propaganda suggests.
The 800 or so fighters who originally composed it, during the war in Donbass, helped to retake the city of Mariupol from the pro-Russian separatists in 2014. Many of the volunteers were from the ultra-nationalist formation Patriot of Ukraine and the neo-fascist-aligned National Social Assembly.
Andriy Biletsky served in parliament from 2014 to 2019. While his rhetoric has become more refined since then, he mentioned in 2008 that Ukraine's mission is to "lead the white races of the world in a final crusade... against the Untermenschen [subhumans] led by the Semites."
In June 2015, Canada announced that it would not support or train this regiment. Visiting Kiev, then-Minister of National Defense
Jason Kenney called it "a few bad apples."
However, in 2018,
a delegation of Canadian military and diplomats met with members of the regiment in Ukraine despite warnings from the Canadian Armed Forces a year earlier.
A 2016 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also accused the Azov Regiment of violating international humanitarian law. Among other things, it is accused of raping and torturing detainees in the Donbass region and displacing residents after looting civilian property.
The Azov Battalion was integrated into the NGU in 2014 following the first Minsk agreements. It would therefore be "depoliticized," according to INALCO researcher Adrien Nonjon. It would then no longer have any ties to the National Corps, the party of the Azov regiment's founder, Andriy Biletsky.
Ukrainian volunteers from the Azov Battalion with their flags put on a show of strength during Ukrainian Volunteer Day in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, March 14, 2020. Photo: Associated Press / Efrem Lukatsky
"Both the separatists and Ukraine are committed to de-escalation," he notes. "They have integrated these subversive elements to be able to monitor and control them. It is a military corps like any other and I would even say that it is an elite unit within the Ukrainian National Guard. You could always say that there are ties that exist, but they are rather informal, based on camaraderie, because they have all been to the front."
However, for Oleksiy Kuzmenko, who is also the author of a
report for George Washington University on contacts between the Western military and members of the far-right Ukrainian group Military Order Centuria, there is no doubt that the Azov regiment still has ties to the far-right National Corps party, despite a politically correct veneer.
"To begin with, until the beginning of Russia's new aggression, the regiment's recruitment center in Kiev shared a location with the party's offices at the Azov ATEK center. It is also important to note that the current head of the regiment, Denis Prokopenko, and his deputy, Svyatoslav Palamar, are both members since 2014 and served under Biletsky. In fact, the founder of the Azov regiment and other leaders of the National Corps continued to visit the regiment before the war. I would also add that in 2019, the regiment sided with the civilian movement when it disrupted the re-election campaign of President Petro Poroshenko. Finally, the Azov armed faction hosted the youth wing of the National Corps in August 2021 as part of training."
In recent communiqués published on the Telegram platform, a spokesman for the regiment denounces the West's lack of involvement in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. "One of the most motivated units in our country, the Azov Regiment, is called fascist and Nazi [...]. We are forbidden to obtain weapons and train with instructors from NATO, our social networks have been blocked, etc. The real fascists are not the fighters of the Azov regiment but the Russian leadership and the Russian army, which had the audacity to call the war in Ukraine a 'special denazification operation'."
The fact remains that, according to researcher Dominique Arel, the Azov regiment "is not depoliticized at all." On the other hand, he questions the relevance of addressing this issue while Ukraine is undergoing the Russian invasion.
Thousands of civilians are still trapped in Mariupol, which is shelled daily by Russian forces. Photo: afp via getty images / ARIS MESSINIS
"It's a branch that is dangerous," he admits. "But right now, they are not beating up Roma in the street: they are defending their country. The fascists are the Russians who terrorize civilian populations. After the war, it could be a problem that the extreme right is armed. But at the moment, beyond the Azov regiment, it is a very good thing that the Canadian Army has trained the Ukrainian forces. We see the exceptional results on the ground. On the ground, in Mariupol, the army, including the Azov regiment, is still holding out."
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