Ukraine before the current war with Russia

Probably very few of us paid much attention to Ukraine before the Russian onslaught affected gas prices, food prices, and revived fears of nuclear Armageddon.  So I found it interesting while reading back issues of Harper's Magazine to encounter a January 2021 article entitled The Armies of the Right: Inside Ukraine's extremist militias.  Herewith a few excerpts:

Ukraine is among the poorest countries in Europe and the closest thing the continent has to a failing state. It is mired in a smoldering conflict with Russian-backed separatists in its eastern provinces, and its state institutions have been almost entirely captured by competing oligarchs. Corruption pervades almost every level of government. Outside Kyiv’s metro stations, elderly women in head scarves and bedraggled war veterans beg for change, while nearby the streets are lined with luxury shops and petty gangsters run red lights in black SUVs without fear of rebuke. Millions have emigrated to Poland or Russia for work. The capital has the uncanny feel, at times, of a postmodern Weimar, where Instagram influencers brunch in cafés tricked out in the international hipster style opposite billboards adorned with the faces of Ukraine’s martyrs in the war against Russia.

But perhaps Ukraine’s clearest departure from the standard model of European liberalism is its proliferation of armed far-right factions, considered by analysts and ordinary Ukrainians alike to be the secretly funded private armies of the elite oligarch class. They fought in the trenches outside Donetsk and now patrol city streets, enforcing a particular vision of order with the blessing of overstretched and underfunded police departments. In some regions, they serve as official election monitors...

Ukraine’s complex ecosystem of far-right militias and activist groups is populated by many other organizations that, while less influential than Azov, still play a major role in public life. A variety of them—including Tradition and Order, Katechon, Freikorps, Sokil, and Karpatska Sich—appear at demonstrations with Azov, though their branding differs. Some are more overtly Christian in their imagery; some tend toward neo-paganism; others are more openly fascist. The groups promote one another’s posts on social media, especially on the Telegram channels used for organizing, indicating that some share members with Azov and thus may act as front organizations for deniable activity, according to Oksana Pokalchuk, the director of Amnesty International Ukraine. More often than not, however, the groups are committed rivals, competing for the largesse of the Ukrainian state and primacy in the country’s increasingly heated street politics...

Although Azov does not formally subscribe to National Socialism, members are known to tattoo themselves with Nazi imagery and fly the swastika flag over their fortifications in the east, in what is either a genuine display of ideological loyalty, an effort to troll their Russian enemies, or both. Ukraine’s bloody twentieth-century history creates a certain confusion, as so many symbols of Ukrainian nationalism and the struggle for independence against the Soviet Union are inextricably linked to those who collaborated with the invading Nazi forces against Stalin, a moral and political ambiguity that groups such as Azov exploit to the furthest possible limit. Azov’s official logo combines the Wolfsangel rune of the “Das Reich” division of the Waffen-SS with the Black Sun symbol, first employed by SS commander Heinrich Himmler at Wewelsburg Castle in Germany. The group’s slick propaganda videos feature young recruits with shaved heads and beards marching in torchlit neo-pagan ceremonies behind a Black Sun shield—imagery as inspiring to disaffected young Ukrainian men as it is discomfiting to the country’s Western backers.

Much more at the link, which will probably be behind a paywall for you - but the hard copy will almost certainly be available in your local library.