Match Made in Azov
Associated Press whitewashes neo-Nazi love story
For some “pro-Ukraine” propagandists, the death of “Valkyrie” and “Berserk” was an unresistable story. She was a medic, and he was a soldier, and they “fell in love just a few months ago, their friends and comrades say, but it helped them endure the war.” In fact, they were neo-Nazis from the Azov movement’s Third Assault Brigade.
Danylo Liashkevych, or “Berserk,” was a former football hooligan from Kyiv with numerous pagan tattoos who got an ideological education in the Azov-affiliated “School for Young Leaders.” He made numerous social media posts with the following hashtags: #SS, #notolerance, #88 (“Heil Hitler”), and #1488, which also refers to the white supremacist “Fourteen Words.” Apparently his girlfriend was a more hardcore neo-Nazi.
Valentyna Nahorna, formerly “valkyria___88” on Instagram, was covered in tattoos, including “Valhalla” on her back. She was evidently a fan of the National Socialist Black Metal band M8L8TH (“Hitler’s Hammer”), which is affiliated with “Wotanjugend,” a group of Hitler-worshipping neo-Nazis from Russia that joined the Azov movement and more recently the Russian Volunteer Corps. In the above photo, Nahorna is wearing a M8L8TH shirt that says “Motor Tour 1941.” Below, she is wearing more neo-Nazi brands, and promoting the M8L8TH label.
Valentyna Nahorna was a medic in the 3rd Assault Brigade, like Yurii Pavlyshyn, the bass guitar player in M8L8TH, who co-organized an international neo-Nazi conference over the summer. Almost exactly one year earlier, Nahorna took a selfie with Volodymyr Zelensky, and gave an interview in which after detailing some of the horrors she witnessed, admitted that she became addicted to the adrenaline rush of war, and would “miss the action” if she lived to see it end.
United24 Media, a Ukrainian state-run propaganda outfit for the English-speaking world, said that “Kyiv honored the memory” of “Valkyrie” and “Berserk” as it shared a video of their funeral shot by the U.S.-funded “Radio Svoboda” — the Ukrainian language service of the former CIA front, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Anton Gerashchenko, former advisor to the Interior Minister of Ukraine, who allegedly created the Ukrainian hit list website Myrotvorets, made a viral post on Twitter/X about this neo-Nazi couple that “fought, loved and died together.”
Ukrainian journalist Alex Babenko covered the story for the Associated Press, which got picked up by ABC News and other outlets. On Instagram, Babenko used the hashtags #wbc and #dynamokyiv, apparently acknowledging the Dynamo Kyiv football hooligans from the neo-Nazi “White Boys Club” that came to say goodbye to “Berserk.” Babenko’s article did not even hint at the extreme-right tendencies and connections of this couple “who fell in love on the frontline and died together in a Russian shell attack.” His Instagram account however tagged the Azov-connected brand, “PSDinfo,” after someone left a patch of theirs on one of the coffins. It should be more surprising to see this wink and a nod to the Nazis from an Associated Press journalist, but after 2.5 years of this war, the glorification and whitewashing of these people is becoming increasingly blatant and routine.
Thanks for reading. If you want to support my work, you can “Buy Me a Coffee.”
