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Despite trying to get out of the platform, it is a violent group of far-right Ukrainians Connection with white supremacists in the United States is using Facebook to hire new members, organize violence, and spread its far-right ideology around the world.
Even if he banned the Azov movement and its leaders more than a year ago, Facebook continues to profit from ads placed by far-right organizations on Monday.
Since July, Azov, which emerged from the Russian invasion in 2014, has opened at least a dozen new Facebook pages. A 25-year-old member of Alla Zasyad has used one to post 82 ads on the social network, and has paid Facebook at least $ 3,726 according to the platform’s ad library. Many of the ads called for street protests against the Ukrainian government. One of the ads encourages children to enroll in a youth training course for patriots. Similar courses they have prepared firearms.
Zasyadko did not respond to requests for comment.
A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, “The Azov battalion is banned from our platforms and we remove content that is known, praised or supported when we become aware of it.”
At the time this story was published, the main Facebook page of the Azov movement, listed as the Ukrainian Corps – the political arm of the movement, a name similar to the National Corps, was still active.
Facebook has come under heavy criticism for its organization of right-wing militant organizations in the U.S. and run ads platform. Some of these groups are committed violence in Black Lives Matter protests, he sided with the civil war, and allegedly conspired kidnapping and killing elected political officials. Facebook he said that he deleted thousands of pages and groups last month in connection with “militarized military movements”. Many of these pages and groups were removed After BuzzFeed News caught the attention of Facebook.
But it has proven difficult to get the far right out of the social network, and many of them reappeared and removed it in a matter of days or weeks.
Facebook banned the Azov movement, which has numerous members defending neo-Nazi beliefs, in April 2019. The company removed several pages related to the group, including those managed by its senior members and various branches they lead.
But since July 16 the group has been using the new Ukrainian Corps page. The page doesn’t try to hide the fact that Azov belongs to the National Corps – it clearly discusses the activities and leaders of the National Corps, links to Azov’s websites and email, and posts photos of members in uniforms at rallies and light torches.
Facebook has no reason not to know that the Azov move is dangerous. After violent attacks on gypsies and LGBTQ people in Ukraine, members of the National Corps and its paramilitary street wing, the National Militia, the US State Department. named Azov’s National Corps is a “nationalist hate group”.
Matthew Schaaf, who heads the Ukrainian office of the Freedom House human rights group, and has watched the group closely, said the Azov movement’s ability to mobilize people through social media threatens society.
“Over the past two years, participants in Azov-linked groups have used violence against vulnerable groups in Ukrainian society and threatened public officials to make social media an important way to organize these actions and share their results,” Schaaf told BuzzFeed News. . “Many of these attacks come with social media posts before and after.”
Azov began in 2014 as a voluntary military battalion that helped Ukraine defend Russia and its representative against the invasion of separatist forces. The symbol of the battalion is similar to that of Wolfsangel, a badge used extensively by the German military in World War II. Even if human rights groups denounced the battalion Concerning the torture and war crimes of the early months of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia, in late 2014, the Ukrainian National Guard introduced the Azov Battalion into its official hole, where the Azov Regiment was appointed.
The military unit has been a favorite of Kremlin fans, a group used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify attacks on Ukraine as a fight against fascism. Although the group is not very popular in Ukraine, its neo-Nazi ties are clear. In 2010, the founder of the battalion, Andriy Biletsky, he said Ukraine “should lead the world’s white races in the final crusade … against Semit-led Untermenschen [subhumans]”.
Biletsky could not be commented on.
While the regiment still looks to Biletsky for inspiration, he has gone into politics; From 2014 to 2019 he was a member of the Ukrainian parliament, but was re-elected. He now leads the National Corps political party, which has not been successful in getting members elected, but is using social media to try to increase support. He is also one of the founders of the Intermarium project of the movement that builds bridges to white nationalists and neo-Nazis in Western Europe and the United States.
Even though Facebook disappeared from the Intermarium pages, a new Intermarium page was created on September 9 by the International Secretary of the National Corps. Olena Semenyaka, Has been sharing news and information about the European far right and neo-Nazis and promoting “cultural” events in the Kyiv office.
After a ban, Semenyaka reopened his Facebook and Instagram accounts under the pseudonym.
Semenyaka did not respond to a request for comment.
Partly thanks to social media, the National Corps has made its way to white nationalist groups in the United States, including its California headquarters. Rise Above Movement, members took part in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, but later saw charges over their actions fall. In April 2018, RAM founder Robert Rundo visited Kyiv and participated in one organized by Azov fight club. In October, the FBI wrote that it believed Azov was involved in “training and radicalizing white-dominated organizations based in the United States.”
Last month, Ukraine deported two neo-Nazi Americans Linked to the U.S. Atomwaffen Division, Azov tried to form a local branch of the group with fighters to gain a “combat experience”.
As Azov uses Facebook to spread beyond Ukraine’s borders, experts are worrying. “The use of violence and the opportunity to gather a large number of young men who are willing to use violence, all of which is facilitated by social media,” Schaaf said, “gives them power.”
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