![]() ![]() But Beirich told me that it's also something that we need to keep monitoring.īEIRICH: When this conflict ends, what's going to happen with all that weaponry? Where is it going to flow to? Who's going to put their hands on it? And that's a concern as well. You know, this is clearly necessary, Scott, to help Ukrainians defend their country. YOUSEF: You know, they're watching very closely now that money and weapons are flowing into Ukraine from Western countries. SIMON: What are experts telling you about their concerns about extremist elements that might be answering this call to war for resistance? State Department designated them a specially designated global terrorist group, making it the first white supremacist terrorist group to receive that designation. And interestingly, in April of 2020, the U.S. You know, the Russian Imperial Movement has kind of sought to cultivate itself as the center of this increasingly integrated transnational movement of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Petersburg and then returned back to Sweden, where they committed a series of bombings, including of a refugee shelter there. I think the most notorious example was back in 2016, when some Swedish nationals reportedly trained with Russian Imperial Movement in St. YOUSEF: The Russian Imperial Movement has been known to train and foster close connections with neo-Nazi groups throughout Europe and has even connected to organizations and individuals with groups in the United States. SIMON: Odette, how has this group tried to sow discord in Western countries? And so as long as the Russian Imperial Movement doesn't do anything to disrupt internal Russian politics, he appears to tolerate it. HEIDI BEIRICH: The thinking is, is that Putin tolerates this group because it sows discord in Western countries and causes problems. Beirich is the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, and here's what she said. And I spoke to Heidi Beirich about why he hasn't done that. You know, it's interesting, Scott, because Putin certainly could dismantle this group if he wanted to. So they kind of are yearning for a return to the tsar. That's an ultranationalist neo-Nazi group that actually is anti-Putin and pro-monarchist. And most prominent among them is a group called the Russian Imperial Movement. YOUSEF: So given Russia's history, you might not expect there to be, you know, neo-Nazis there, but there are. And those experts also say that Putin's claim about neo-Nazis in Ukraine is hypocritical. And honestly, that far-right ideology really still is on the fringe in Ukraine. ![]() But far-right experts say it's grossly inaccurate to take this regiment's history as some sort of indication that the whole of the Ukrainian military or society sympathizes with neo-Nazis. has at least on paper banned aid and training from going to that unit. And, you know, today there continues to be debate over whether ideologically the regiment is neo-Nazi. The origins of the Azov Regiment were neo-Nazis. And later that year it was folded into the nation's security apparatus under the Ukrainian National Guard. Now, that was something that started as an ultranationalist volunteer battalion back in 2014, when Ukraine was resisting the Russian annexation of Crimea. Putin is mainly believed to have been referring to something called the Azov Regiment. YOUSEF: You know, I think this claim was surprising to people who are aware that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is Jewish and that he has family members who were killed in the Holocaust. This claim that Putin makes of denazifying Ukraine - what's he mean? These two countries were once allies right before World War II. SIMON: I want to begin by noting that, of course, there was the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939 before the Nazis invaded Russia. Odette, thanks so much for being with us. NPR's Odette Yousef covers domestic extremism and joins us now. They also point to the latitude that Putin has given to neo-Nazis in his own country. Experts of the far-right roundly dismiss Putin's pretext for invasion. Vladimir Putin hoped to resurrect it when he claimed his invasion was in part to denazify Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has, for the moment, sidelined a topic that's historically been highly sensitive in that country.
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