Azov Regiment, battle banner, 2015.
There is an inconvenient truth that those beating the war-drum against Russia love to ignore — namely, the Nazis of Ukraine.
We are told that this is all somehow "Russian disinformation/misinformation," or that Putin loves to call people whom he doesn't like, "Nazis" (notice, this is what actually is done in the West against opponents of the elite). Of course, no real evidence is ever given to back up these claims, as has now become a sad habit, any self-righteous assertion is considered "truth."
Here are the facts about Nazis in Ukraine.
The drumbeaters have yet to disprove any of them.OriginsWhen Hitler invaded Ukraine, for many it was a liberation from communism and openly celebrated, and soon led to the creation of
the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician" (later, the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, 1st Galician). It was nearly annihilated in the Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive (1944).
What remained was regrouped as the Ukrainian National Army (UNA), under the German High Command (OKH) and led by General Pavlo Shandruk (1889-1979). The UNA numbered some 220,000 volunteers and fought in various theatres throughout Europe with the Wehrmacht, including Austria. What marked all these volunteers was a strong antipathy to the Soviet Union. With the defeat of the Nazis, the UNA surrendered to the British and the US. All the volunteers did not want to be sent back to the Ukraine and sought asylum elsewhere (
a large number coming to Canada and the US).
General Shandruk
struck a special deal with Poland (with the help of General Władysław Anders), which accepted members of the UNA as "pre-war Polish citizens." Shandruk was given the Polish Virtuti Militari order, and he settled in Germany, before eventually moving to the US, where he died in 1979.
Comment: The weaponization of Ukraine was designed to do more than mine the country in anticipation of Russian forces intervening.
The question is, why did Russia intervene? Does it just not like seeing Ukraine go the way it has gone? Or is its claim that Ukraine - in its current form - represents a fundamental threat to Russian statehood a valid one?
600,000+ armed Ukrainians trained to NATO standards and backed up by NATO supply lines and led by fanatical Nazis were not going to just sit tight in western Ukraine and wait for the Russians to come.
At the very least, they were poised to retake the Donbass and Crimea by force before Russia pre-emptively nixed their immediate plan. But the longer-term plan was for them to keep going, on into Russia, all the way to Moscow ideally, bringing about regime change and/or the break-up of the Russian Federation.
Ukraine was way more than a de facto NATO member; it was a bridgehead for the NATO invasion of Russia. With nuclear war out of the question due to mutually-assured destruction, proxy 'hybrid' warfare is the only means available to the Western Empire. So the question for Russia becomes, at what point to we intercede here to prevent Russia from being 'given the Syria treatment'?
As Joe Quinn explained in a recent NewsReal, the British and Americans in 2019 and 2020 built two naval bases, either side of Crimea, and supplied them with warships forally under the 'Ukrainian flag'. Such moves were not mere gestures...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine was not a 'war of choice'. It was a genuinely pre-emptive war, with just cause.