The soldiers of Azov battalion They will be called individually. A nod from the Russian soldiers, who asked the surrendered to lift their shirts and put on their underwear, is enough. Kremlin men scan militiamen looking for tattoos vaguely reminiscent of Nazi symbolism. And they find many. At least the President Wladimir Putin – when he announced the start of the “special operation”, as the Kremlin called it, he promised “denazify“Ukraine. And these pictures, released by the Ministry of Defense and aimed mainly at the Russian people, prove it. What the soldiers of Moscow are fighting is a war against the new Nazism.
The most common symbol is that of the battalion, draped in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag. As we have already explained, it is the wolf angelthe love of wolves, which was the first coat of arms of the party founded by Adolf Hitlerthen also entered the iconography of ss.
Other soldiers wear them black sunpreviously used by the Thule companyone of the esoteric organizations that contributed to the thought and rise of Nazism, and then by the Schutzstaffel, the aforementioned Ss.
Another frequently recurring element is the Totenkrof, the skull”. It is a skull from whose neck some emerge crossbones. From 1809 this symbol was widely used in German military and political iconography. But it is during the Third Reich that the use of the Totenkrof reaches its peak. It is used by the SS and in particular by the SS Totenkopfverbande. Established in 1936, after the annexation of Austria to Germany, Hitler entrusted them with the custody of the concentration camps.
Runes are commonly used by battalion soldiers. especially theÔþalan, literally “heritage, heir”. Iron symbol, in ancient times it was worn to protect against trolls and in general from evil influences. Under the Nazis, this rune was used by the Seventh Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”, a unit of the SS deployed to the Yugoslav front during World War II.
In addition to the Ôþalan, some of the battalion’s soldiers were branded with the life runeused by the SS used in the (insane) Lebensborn Eugenics Projectstrongly endorsed and endorsed by Heinrich Himmlerto defend the Aryan race. Tattooed swastikas seem to be widespread. And it’s hard to believe — as noted by Mikhail Pirog, chief of the Azov Fourth Battalion stationed in Zaporizhia — that it’s just an “ancient Slavic, pan-European, even Indian symbol.”
Also because there are those who had it sigrunea symbol that indicated the sun, but which was then associated with the Sieg (Sieg in German) and then with the initials of the SS. These pictures were taken outside the Azovstal factory, as the background and the length avenue present behind the soldiers of the Azov battalion suggest.
However, the Russian Defense Ministry has also released other photos taken indoors that cannot be identified. So we don’t know if they are pictures of Azov prisoners or not. But they are significant as long as they are taken with some caution (like all images that come out of this conflict). Indeed, during the first weeks of the war, several Russian media outlets published some carefully edited videos and photos showing Nazi flags and copies of Mein Kampf, oddly enough, lying intact between the burned walls. More recently, the same media also showed a helmet, freshly green in color, on which the sigrune of the SS stands out. It is difficult to say where the documentation ends and where the propaganda. Having made this necessary premise, among the frames disseminated by the Russians we see a soldier with a large tattoo on his chest depicting a hooded man who appears to be holding a torch or perhaps a Molotov cocktail. A scene depicting a stadium curve (a man with a megaphone is also present) or an image celebrating the Euromaidan? Impossible to say. But you can’t overlook the big one celtic cross that dominates the breast of man. A little further up two digits: 14 and 88. The Anti Defamation League website explains the meaning of these numbers: “It’s a combination of two popular white supremacist number symbols. 14 is an abbreviation of the slogan 14 words: We must guarantee the existence of our people and a future for white children.” . 88 instead stands for the exclamation Heil Hitler (the H is actually the eighth letter of the alphabet).
Another soldier preferred to immortalize Hitler Nazi swastika in the arm. Another one, Stepan Banderathe leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Oun), who – in a very turbulent manner – collaborated with the Nazis against the Soviets and was one of those responsible for the extermination of the Jews in Ukraine.
Then there is one last vein that the Azov soldiers chose to depict on their bodies, this one esoteric, apparently also present in the runes, which actually have a hidden meaning. Some militiamen have tattoos depicting goats, mythological animals, and pentagrams reminiscent of satanism. Finally, even before becoming a political movement, Nazism was first an (esoteric) culture that arose in the undergrowth of German circles between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the political scientist Giorgio has documented in detail Gauls .
Putin is not fighting to “denazify” Ukraine. Just look at the numbers to understand. The Ukrainian army can count on about 200,000 soldiers, which can reach 900,000 who are considered reservists. The Azov battalion, which had a few hundred supporters in 2014, now has a few thousand men. A minimal percentage when compared to the Kyiv Armed Forces. But the tattoos on the bodies of Ukrainian volunteers demonstrate that shortcut between them and the Third Reich. A connection too long forgotten in these eighty days of conflict to justify their resistance to Moscow’s troops.