From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right (Analyzing Political Violence)

From its roots in revolution and war, Ukraine's Azov movement has grown from a militia of fringe far-right figures and football hooligans fending off Russian-backed forces into a multipronged social movement that has become the envy of the global far right. In this first English-language book on the Azov movement, Michael Colborne explains how Azov came to be and continues to exploit Ukraine's fractured social and political situation--including the only ongoing war on European soil - to build one of the most ambitious and dangerous far-right movements in the world. Biographische Informationen Michael Colborne is a Canadian journalist and researcher who focuses on the far right in Eastern Europe. He is a Policy and Practitioner Fellow with the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) and has been part of the Bellingcat Monitoring Project team at the investigative journalism website Bellingcat, primarily researching Ukraine's far right. Colborne's work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Haaretz, The New Republic, Balkan Insight, and other publications. Reihe Analyzing Political Violence - Band 2 Table of Contents 8 Introduction 10 Chapter 1: The Roots of Azov 16 Kurgans to Cossacks 17 Ukrainian nationalism’s slow birth 21 The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and World War II 23 Independent Ukraine 25 Maidan 29 War in Donbas and Azov’s birth 33 Chapter 2: Ideologies and Inspirations 38 Ukrainian nationalism: domestic influences 39 The Conservative Revolution and non-Nazi fascisms 43 The Nouvelle Droite and metapolitics 46 Neo-Nazism, violence and terror 49 What do we call Azov? 53 Azov’s core sentiments 55 Chapter 3: Azov in Action 60 The Azov movement: an overview 61 The core: Azov Regiment, National Corps and Centuria 63 Official affiliates 70 Unofficial affiliates 74 Independent organizations 77 Beyond Azov 79 Chapter 4: In the Shadows 82 Friends in high places 84 Who funds Azov? 89 Mysteries and suspicions 97 Chapter 5: Mainstreams and Extremes 102 Doublespeak 103 Branding and visuals 107 A wartime media climate 110 The long march through institutions 115 Chapter 6: International Ambitions 122 Azov’s first foreign friends 123 Networks and ‘new nationalism’ 126 Foreign fighters, facts and fiction 131 Mission unaccomplished? 136 Chapter 7: The Future of Azov 140 Radicalization or entropy? 141 Shifting the discourse 144 Dismantling the structure 147 Ukraine’s international allies 150 Final thoughts 151 Acknowledgments 154 References 156 Traditionally, far-right terrorism has been the black swan of terrorism studies—receiving less attention than Jihadi extremism. In this book, William Allchorn takes a deep dive into multiple geographical locales and the online space of far-right movements, uncovering the crisis narratives that are animating violent far-right extremist milieus and presenting solutions on what we can do to stop them. Using eight country case studies and the results of an online pilot project, this is the first book-length presentation and discussion of counter techniques to far-right narratives—exploring their effectiveness, the ethics of such techniques, and their ability to disrupt pathways from radicalism towards violent extremism. Coming at a time of a renewed global wave of far-right violence, this book is of use to scholars as well as practitioners in the fields of far-right studies, terrorism studies, and strategic communications. "In September 2017, Dr Nasser Kurdy was stabbed in the neck while entering the grounds of his local mosque. This book tells the story of that attack and how Dr Kurdy came to forgive his attacker. It lays out the international historical events that brought Dr Kurdy to be in that place at that time and it follows events after the attack, combining his surgical knowledge with his experience of the UK criminal justice system as well as a series of reflective enquiries into the nature of forgiveness. The book is the timely and inspiring story of the optimism that can emerge from violence. It also includes contributions from a number of friends, family, and colleagues of Dr Kurdy, which illustrate the impact such an attack can have beyond that on a single individual. "--Publisher's website