what i dont understand is if this is one small insignificant battalion why are they getting all the press? why did zelensky give a speech with two members?
why cant he pick other branches or the media showcase other battalions?
They were a thing in 2014. When Russia invaded the first time. Not quite an organization though. The region sits on the Azov sea. When Russia invaded, plain clothed, embedded with separatists Ukraine only had a 5000 man active force. Any and everybody willing to pick up a weapon came to push back.
The group that everyone considers Nazi’s took the name “the Azov battalion” and actually fukked the separatists up so bad that the then shytty Ukraine Army stood a chance of surviving.
The Russians said fukk it and sent their regular uniformed forces in and surrounded everybody. A ceasefire was negotiated to allow everyone to escape and (of course) Russia lies and killed a bunch of them while they retreated. Russia thought it was a game and the separatists could handle business and decided to completely pull out.
Ukraine evaluated itself and all these new militias and started rebuilding. The old president initially allowed 2-3 members of the old battalion a representative spot in parliament (or whatever they have) but somehow they got removed. The newer govt locked up a bunch of the Nazi members of “the Azov battalion” militia, basically for being Nazi’s and doing foul shyt to the separatists (who also did foul shyt).
For morale purposes they absorbed the rest of the unit into the national guard. It became the Azov regiment. They started rotational assignments throughout the whole Army, much like most modern Army’s (you do a little time in one unit for experience and rotate elsewhere.)
The people who were in the original militia aren’t even there anymore and are probably still locked up. Russia was scrambling for reasons to justify the most retarded invasion in modern history and continue to use it as an excuse even though they allow Russian Nazi’s to actually stand as government institutions.
This whole argument turned pretty pointless as it’s now a game of “which cac do I believe” for people who don’t really understand much about this aside from hot take headlines. From reading the last page of this thread, I would put some real thought into believing anything that comes out of Russia for the next couple weeks, it’s about to get a little more rough for them soon.