This is popular front, a podcast focused on the niche details of modern warfare and

underreported conflict with me Jake Hanrahan.

Today we're speaking to journalist Michael Colborn

and he's going to be speaking to us about the rise of Ukraine's

far-right militia known as the Azov Battalion.

Asov began as a small-time fighting force of volunteers when the war kicked off in the

East and they're now trusted by the government and even have their own column of

tanks. Many people in as of are openly far-right and some are even neo-Nazis.

If you like what we're doing here at Popular Front, please do consider

supporting us at patreon.com slash Popular Front.

For anyone that doesn't know, never heard of them like who are the Azov battalion what is it you know maybe just go into that first of all if you can

as of is it's commonly it's referred to quite commonly like as the as of battalion which is what it originally was.

But as of the regiment, it started up in 2014.

It was in the wake of the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian-backed aggression in eastern Ukraine's armed forces were in absolute

tatters and to deal with the invasion, all of a sudden war that was on their territory.

Ukraine's armed forces relied on volunteers and people essentially forming their, they weren't with organizing with

state support, state backing, forming their own battalions or militias to fight in eastern Ukraine on the side of Ukraine.

And one of these battalions that started up was called the Azov battalion.

It started, basically without going into too much detail, the genesis of it came from far-right activists

from a group that was called Patriot of Ukraine, also involved a far-right football hooligans and other people from Ukraine's

far-right subcultures and they formed, in a long story short, formed a battalion to fight in the east took part in a number of battles, including the liberation of the city of Mariupo on the sea of Azov and that's partly why the that they took the name

Azov as as theirs and from there in 2014, or late in 2014, the battalion was formally brought

...