‘Gandalf’ and ‘Azov 2.0’
The New York Times is a case study in how the western media has whitewashed the world’s most powerful neo-Nazi movement. In the spring of 2022, amidst the Russian siege of Mariupol, the ideology of the Azov Regiment in the National Guard of Ukraine started to become past-tense in the United States’ so-called newspaper of record.
During the second half of April, this infamous military group (just one component of the Azov movement) evolved from “a force that does include far-right soldiers,” to “a highly skilled and controversial unit” that is “filled with far-right fighters,” and then to “a force that does include nationalist soldiers, which the Kremlin has used to paint the unit as fascist,” and finally, a complicated unit “whose history as a far-right group has helped fuel Russia’s largely false claim that it is fighting fascists in Ukraine.” In the coming days, the Times conducted a soft-ball interview with Lt. Illia Samoilenko, an intelligence officer from Azov holed up in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, “who speaks fluent English, [and] seemed intent on defining the legacy of the Azov Battalion.”
“We know about our past,” he said. He acknowledged the Azov regiment’s “obscure” origins and its past association with far-right extremists — something he said the group had shed when it became part of the national military.
Samoilenko, better known by his call-sign “Gandalf,” was not fact-checked, and the New York Times subsequently began to describe Azov as “a former far-right militia” with ambiguous “connections to far-right movements,” and “a hard-core contingent” with “far-right origins.” The newspaper became a broken record almost anytime it mentioned “the Azov regiment, whose roots in far-right movements have offered a veneer of credibility for Mr. Putin’s tenuous claims that Ukraine has been infected with Nazism.” As for Samoilenko, captured by the Russians in May and released in October, with no apparent Nazi tendencies, he became the poster boy of this narrative about the “depoliticization” of Azov — a process that allegedly started in 2014, 2015, 2017, or later, depending on who you ask.
Back in 2017, “Gandalf” spoke with Stanislav Krupar, a Czech reporter that paid a visit to the Azov Regiment’s base in Mariupol. Krupar noticed that “bearded Gandalf, the best shooter in the group,” had an ominous pair of Velcro patches on his bulletproof vest: the flayed man sigil of House Bolton, from Game of Thrones, and the insignia of the Nazi brown-shirts, or paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA). “Gandalf” brushed off concerns about the latter, “by explaining that before the war, he and his friends participated in reenactments of World War II battles. For the Germans.” Later, alongside an Azov fighter in a replica SS uniform, “Gandalf” admitted to the reporter, “I don’t believe in any holocaust, it’s just a story.” Now, as a deputy commander of Azov, it is his job to “govern our media activities.”
In September 2022, shortly before Illia Samoilenko and more than 100 Azov fighters were released in a large prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, the Azov movement sent its first delegation to the United States, which included Samoilenko’s mother. About three months later, “Gandalf” led another Azov delegation to Tel Aviv — an important PR win for the Ukrainian neo-Nazi movement. He was accompanied from Kyiv by a pair of Ukrainian nationalists that evidently live in Israel, one of whom posed with Samoilenko in his Tel Aviv hotel wearing a shirt from the neo-Nazi brand “Svastone.” This same individual posted a group photo with Samoilenko to Instagram, with a caption that referenced the neo-Nazi slogan, “White Pride World Wide.”
A pair of articles published by the Times of Israel softened the controversy that surrounded this trip. The first one tried to explain that “Azov 2.0” was cleansed of “far-right ideologues” by 2015, and reported that Samoilenko “sees Israel and Ukraine on the same side, the civilized battling the uncivilized in a struggle for the future of humanity.” A few days later, another article said that “this is a very symbolic and significant visit to Israel that shatters the myths of Russian propaganda about the ‘Azov’ regiment.” It dismissed “the myth about ‘Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ in military uniform,” and declared that “international journalists were covertly exploited by Russians.” This article also claimed that “those who shared the far-right ideology left the unit back in 2015.” As for Samoilenko, he joined Azov in 2016. In a more sane world, the aforementioned article from 2017 would “shatter the myths” about “Azov 2.0.”
In the coming days, Samoilenko sent Christmas greetings to “NAFO,” the rabidly “pro-Ukraine” internet group, which we’ve covered here on “Ukes, Kooks, and Spooks.” Kamil Dyszewski, the Nazi edgelord turned NAFO founder, was ecstatic. “Right The Fuck On,” he posted. In early January 2023, as the Azov Regiment was upgraded to the Azov Brigade, “Gandalf” joined Twitter, on the heels of signing an Azov flag for U.S. Helsinki Commission staffer Paul Massaro, a celebrity in NAFO-world. After Instagram removed Massaro’s post about this, a prominent “anti-corruption” activist in Ukraine said, “There is a complete misunderstanding of what Azov is now. The US fell under russian propaganda about alleged Ukrainian nazis.” A so-called journalist from the United States chimed in, “I agree. We need more education on Azov. Their history and present is complicated, but they are also grossly misunderstood.”
Later that month, Samoilenko attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as well as the Kyiv Security Forum in Ukraine. “One year ago things like this were unimaginable,” he commented. “It was quite surprising [in Davos],” he recalled, “because I met a lot of people who are really in touch, I mean like politicians, businessmen, and we’re trying to do a lot of fundraising.” (Meanwhile, the Azov Brigade launched a new fundraising platform.)
In February, Samoilenko went to Paris, Berlin, and New York City. In Manhattan, he delivered presentations to the United Nations and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. (Samoilenko’s clichéd words of wisdom at Columbia: “Strong people create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create bad times, bad times create strong people. Somehow we are all [a] generation of weak people.” He also claimed that Russia “is not a nation, they don’t have a nation,” because “they have 100 nationalities and everyone is Russian.” There was no discussion of the Nazi Question, but in conclusion, he said, “All the Ukrainian nationalists from the previous eras, they were right.”) Also that month, as one of the heroes of the film, Samoilenko participated in the premier of Bernard-Henri Lévy’s documentary, “Glory to Ukraine.”
By March 2023, Samoilenko starred in a campaign by the Ukrainian brand “Indposhiv,” according to which it is “the first brand of classic men’s bespoke clothing in Ukraine.” The Defense Ministry of Ukraine even posted about this: “Our heroes are our new style icons. They are the face of an unconquerable Ukraine.”
Later that year, Samoilenko interviewed a U.S. special forces veteran who participated in training the Azov Brigade. When it came to the issue of Nazism in the unit, “Gandalf” explained, “A huge amount of efforts has been invested to break through these myths and lies. A lot of international campaigns, a lot of conferences, visits.” Samoilenko was proud to say that “at the UN, in Berlin, in Paris, and everywhere I was well recognized by people and welcomed. For me this means a lot.”
Those “huge amount of efforts” paid dividends earlier this year, when the State Department cleared the Azov Brigade to receive U.S. weapons and training. Meanwhile, Samoilenko helped to pave the way for another Azov delegation that visited London, which this blog was the first to report. “Gandalf” was quoted by the Sunday Times: “Some of the original shady elements and weirdos in Azov’s foundation days might have thought that Ukrainian independence could be manifested through neo-Nazism, which was idiotic. … They were the ones who caused us the original trouble and yet they have nothing to do with the unit now.” But in that case, why wasn’t Samoilenko purged from the unit years ago? At the time of writing, this deputy commander of the Azov Brigade hasn’t responded to my request for an explanation.
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