Outlook Perspective
Neo-Nazis are exploiting Russias war in Ukraine for their own purposes
Not since ISIS have we seen such a flurry of recruitment activity.
By Rita Katz
Rita Katz is the executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group and a terrorism analyst. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Saints and Soldiers: Inside Internet-Age Terrorism, From Syria to the Capitol Siege.
March 14, 2022 at 1:09 p.m. EDT
Servicemen of Ukraine's Azov Battalion pray in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 11. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)
Hi can you please forward a message since two of us are trying to get a carshare from germany to ukraine going, reads a Feb. 26 message forwarded to a popular neo-Nazi Web channel.
We are 3 french, leaving Strasbourg tomorrow morning with our car, another message answered. There is place for 2 german fighters.
These are the types of conversations that have flooded Western neo-Nazi and white-nationalist venues online every day since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine: users organizing carpools, plotting how to cross the Poland-Ukraine border to join the fight against Russia. Their goal is not to defend Ukraine as we know it a multiethnic, democratically minded society led by a Jewish president. Some neo-Nazis simply see this new war as a place to act out their violent fantasies. For others, though, the force pulling them toward the conflict is a shared vision for an ultranationalist ethno-state. They see Ukraine as a golden opportunity to pursue this goal and turn it into a model to export across the world.
[We can do more to help Ukraine without provoking World War III]
The would-be militants have been recruited by groups like the
Azov Battalion, a far-right nationalist Ukrainian paramilitary and political movement. Azov was absorbed into the Ukrainian national guard in 2014 and has been a basis for Putins false claim that Ukraines government is run by neo-Nazis. Though Azov remains a fringe movement in Ukraine, it is a larger-than-life brand among many extremists. It has openly welcomed Westerners into its ranks
via white-supremacist sites. Azov stickers and patches have been seen around the globe: from
a bookbag at a July 2020 neo-Nazi counterprotest in Tennessee to the motorcycle of an attempted mosque bomber in Italy.
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By Rita Katz
Rita Katz is the executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group and a terrorism analyst. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Saints and Soldiers: Inside Internet-Age Terrorism, From Syria to the Capitol Siege. Twitter
https://twitter.com/Rita_Katz