Smolnikova, a.k.a. “Rina Reznik,” is the head of the “Care Service” of the NGU Azov Brigade. “If the Western countries are preparing for a big war, they at least need to learn how to do it […] and we have the experience now to share,” she said in Davos. Samolnikova used to serve in the Hospitallers Medical Battalion, which is affiliated with the far-right “Ukrainian Volunteer Army,” a Right Sector splinter group, but now she’s dating Azov Brigade deputy commander Illia Samoilenko, better known as “Gandalf.” Years before he visited Israel and attended the 2023 World Economic Forum, becoming the poster boy of his unit’s fake “depoliticization,” Samoilenko once told a Czech journalist, “I don’t believe in any holocaust, it’s just a story.”
[…]
“Ukrainian Week” coincided with the annual National Prayer Breakfast, followed by a Ukrainian Prayer Breakfast the next morning. According to the New York Times, Ukraine sent “its largest-ever delegation” to this “gathering of politically influential Christian leaders in Washington.” At some point, Ukrainians took the stage, and the Azovites stood next to the podium. With the messages “Pray for Ukraine” and “Peace for Israel” behind them, representatives of the 3rd Assault Brigade held up a flag that is reportedly “associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government” since its adoption by “Stop the Steal” campaigners.
[…]
NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division held an all-day event at its headquarters in Brussels, “Commemorating 3 Years of War in Ukraine.” Vladyslav Shatilo, an Azov veteran whose public Instagram account includes pictures of his friends making Nazi salutes, participated in the Monday event. Shatilo appears to be good friends with Dmitriy Krukovsky, the Hitler-tattooed leader of the Azov movement’s paramilitary “Centuria” organization for neo[fascist] youth. They have matching tattoos on their right thigh. On the third anniversary of Putin launching his “Special Military Operation,” a neo[fascist] from the Azov movement “discussed Ukraine” with the Chair of the NATO Military Committee and Deputy Secretary General of NATO. He arrived to NATO headquarters with a group that sponsors Ukrainian veterans to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
[…]
Representatives of the “Russian Volunteer Corps” (RDK), an openly neo[fascist] military unit linked to the Azov movement, are said to have literally formed the fifth column at a Russian opposition march in the German capital led by Yulia Navalnaya. Only the left-wing Berlin-based newspaper Junge Welt reported on this “Parade with Nazikorps,” and recent NGU Azovite efforts to recruit an “International Battalion.” German police, normally eager to beat up Berliners in the name of combatting “antisemitism,” did nothing to enforce German laws against displaying Nazi symbols (Azov wolfsangel doesn’t count?) and protesters masking their face, which several did, when some of the most dangerous neo[fascists] in the world decided to launch a new phase of their public activities.
Did I mention that Azov visited Antarctica? (Not a joke.)
Related: The Azov lobby’s greatest hits.