(03-05-2022 13:39 )4waydiablo Wrote: (01-05-2022 21:47 )crankshaft Wrote: there is highly convincing circumstantial proof to show Azov Battlion radicals and other far-right nationalists have also killed scores of people
I've looked through your posts to find this 'highly convincing' evidence that you speak of. It seems to consist of the following statements.
"some of these deaths could be reprisal attacks against 'Russian collaborators' by members of the Azov Battalion who arrived in Bucha a few days after the Russians left"
"there is extremism in it’s ranks and they have been responsible for a so-far unknown number of war crimes"
"Azov Nazis entered Bucha on Apr 1/2"
"Azov gangs are known for such atrocities. The infamous Azov member Sergey "Boatsman" Korotkikh is reported to have, around the time, posted a video titled "The BOATSMAN BOYS in Bucha." It appears that Ukrainian Nazis asked permission to shoot people without blue armbands. Were Boatman and his Nazi friends given the green-light to go around and shoot civilians who'd been Russian collaborators?"
"Finally, re: the video filmed off Ukrainian army personal entering into the city - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7yIyNBMpQY&t=2s at one point in the video, a Ukrainian woman is said to direct the National Guard fighters to where the "saboteurs and collaborators are or were"
I can't see anything here that amounts to 'highly convincing circumstantial proof'. To me it comes across as nothing more than speculation.
I was not setting out in my posts to write in the manner of a submission to the Human Rights Council to present the evidence of war crimes of the Azov Battalion. I was merely writing a response on an internet thread.
There have been many reports (ignored by western media) of Russophone people from Mariupol reporting that Azov Battalion fighters allegedly attacked Russophone civilians trying to escape Mariupol during the height of the Russian military offensive against the Ukrainian army and Azov fighters in Mariupol in March and April this year. There are also allegations by the Russians that Azov fighters used residents as human shields in residential areas in their military defence against the Russians who surrounded the city early on in the conflict (in the first few days)
Since 2014, Azov fought on the front lines against pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk, the eastern region of Ukraine. 8000 civilians are reported to have been killed over the course of the last 8 years in the areas of Donetsk and Lugansk in the war against Russian separatists since 2014.
Azov is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members – estimated at 900 – are ultra-nationalists and accused of harbouring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology. The unit was led by Andriy Biletsky, who served as the leader of both the Patriot of Ukraine (founded in 2005) and the SNA (founded in 2008). The SNA is known to have carried out attacks on minority groups in Ukraine. In 2010, Biletsky said Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”. Biletsky was elected to parliament in 2014. He left Azov as elected officials cannot be in the military or police force. He remained an MP until 2019.
In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time said that 10 to 20 percent of Azov’s recruits were Nazis. The unit has denied it adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole, but Nazi symbols such as the swastika and SS regalia are rife on the uniforms and bodies of Azov members. For example, the uniform carries the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol, which resembles a black swastika on a yellow background. The group said it is merely an amalgam of the letters “N” and “I” which represent “national idea”.