Wrecked in Mariupol
Azov unit is back on the front lines
08/17/2023 5:36 p.m
The siege of Mariupol makes the Azov regiment a symbol of the Ukrainian will to resist. During the battle for the city, the unit is completely wiped out. Reorganized and enlarged to a brigade, the association is now back.
According to Kiev, the Azov Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard is conducting military operations on the Eastern Front. This was said by Colonel Mykola Urshalowitch, an officer in the National Guard, during a press conference. “The special operations brigade ‘Azov’ has recovered and is beginning to conduct combat operations in the area of the Serebryanskyi forest.” The soldiers of the Azov brigade would hold previously captured positions and inflict heavy casualties on the enemy, according to Urshalowitch. The brigade’s artillery destroyed a Russian mortar and a vehicle near the Serebryanskyi forest in the Luhansk region on Tuesday.
The Azov Brigade was formed in 2014 as a volunteer unit by Ukrainian nationalists and right-wing extremists in the wake of the Russian invasion. The association is therefore used by Russian propaganda as an example of alleged “Nazi rule” in the Ukraine. However, according to Ukrainian political scientist Ivan Gomza, most right-wing extremists left the unit in the year it was founded, after it was incorporated into the National Guard.
In the spring of 2022, during the siege of Mariupol, the then Azov regiment became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. The unit held out in the city’s steelworks for weeks before Russian troops completely conquered Mariupol. The surviving defenders were taken prisoner of war. About 200 of them were later exchanged. Five commanders of the unit returned to Ukraine in early July after spending several months in Turkey on a prisoner exchange. Russia criticized the move as a breach of the agreement. In February the Azov regiment was enlarged to a brigade.