Ukraine Deradicalized Its Extremist Troops. Now They Might Be Preparing A Counteroffensive.

The narrative the Kremlin advances to justify its brutal war on the Ukrainian people—that Ukraine is a far-right Nazi regime bent on destroying Russia—is a lie.

Yes, there really are far-right elements in Ukrainian society. But it’s unfair to describe Ukrainian military units—even those that orginally formed within fringe groups—as “right-wing.” Kyiv deliberately has de-radicalized these units.

The 98th Azov Battalion is one of several units that has undergone this transformation. Today the battalion essentially is indistinguishable from other Ukrainian formations.

The anti-immigrant Azov Movement arguably is the most powerful of Ukraine’s far-right organizations. When Russian troops and the separatist allies first attacked eastern Ukraine back in 2014, the Azov Movement formed an armed paramilitary regiment—and resisted.

The Azov Regiment really was an extremist formation. It borrowed iconography from Nazi Germany and, in addition to fighting the Russians, functioned as a base of support for its racist founder Andriy Biletsky as he successfully campaigned for a seat in parliament.

The Ukrainian army in late 2014 formally integrated the Azov Regiment. Many of Ukraine’s foreign allies, including the United States, objected to the integration. But the deradicalization process already was underway.

For starters, Biletsky was gone—off campaigning for the parliamentary seat he would hold until 2019. What’s more, the Ukrainian general staff in mid-2015 pulled the Azov Regiment from the front line for restructuring and retraining.

Massive manpower turnover alone significantly diluted the regiment’s ideology. By the time it returned to the front line in early 2019, the Azov Regiment probably was unrecognizable to its original members. It likely was even less recognizable three years later this February, when Russia widened its war on Ukraine.

“The Azov Regiment has been repeatedly reconstituted,” wrote Alasdair McCallum, a researcher at Monash University in Australia. “Its extremist early leaders such as the odious Andriy Biletsky are long gone, and, more recently, its fearsome, pseudo-pagan regimental emblem has been abandoned.”

By the time the Azov Regiment began spinning off successor units, the ideological poison mostly was gone. The 98th Azov Battalion stood up this spring, around the same time the original regiment was fighting nearly to the last man and woman in Mariupol, an historic city on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast that Russian forces surrounded and besieged early in the wider war.

The 98th Azov Battalion belongs to the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces, roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Army National Guard. Where the Ukrainian army’s active formations might range across the country, attacking and defending where needed, territorial brigades and battalions tend to stick to the same cities and oblasts where they recruit their members.

So the 98th Azov Battalion since this spring has been defending a 50-mile swathe of southeastern Ukraine running along the border between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts.

It’s an increasingly strategic region. Fully capturing Donetsk, and firming up the separatist “republic” in the oblast, is one of the Kremlin’s top goals. For Kyiv, the sector is a possible base of operations for a potential future counteroffensive toward the Black Sea coast. A counteroffensive that could turn toward the west in order to liberate the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Even leaving aside the propaganda narrative that Azov troops are Nazis and Nazis run Ukraine, the Russians badly want to destroy the 98th Azov Battalion. But the battalion, with perhaps 400 soldiers at its full strength, hasn’t just survived—it has inflicted its share of casualties on Russian and separatist forces.

The battalion like many territorial units apparently started out as a light-infantry formation. Its heaviest weapons were its machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Its heaviest vehicles were pickup trucks, some fitted with recoilless rifles.

Over time, however, the 98th Azov Battalion like much of the Ukrainian army steadily has gotten heavier. It has added M-113 armored personnel carriers that Ukraine’s NATO allies have donated. It has captured, and put to use, Russian BMP fighting vehicles—and regrettably painted on at least one BMP a cross similar to the German army’s own insignia. The battalion now has tanks and bomb-dropping quadcopter drones.

The heavier the battalion gets, the harder it can fight. In one skirmish near Velyka Novosilka, apparently in early December, the 98th Azov Battalion knocked out five Russian BMPs and a T-80 tank.

If and when Ukraine’s southern command launches an offensive from Zaporizhzhia, the 98th Azov Battalion could play an important role. At the very least, the battalion will anchor the offensive’s rear. It’s also possible the unit will join active mechanized brigades at the offensive’s vanguard.

Expect Russian propagandists to shout “Nazis!” every time the 98th Azov Battalion makes a move. Don’t believe it.