legit i think that's how it mostly goes. they either get to be poster children for recruiting efforts or get the cushy jobs of going around rounding up 45 year old dads trying to hide from MPs so they can feed their sick child
idk Azov proved to be disturbingly motivated fighters. Sure some of them are like this, but let's not underestimate committed fascists as fighters. Their danger goes beyond rhetoric and policy after all
The US put them in positions of leadership in the 2014 coup, because they were a big part of that effort. They are probably just hanging around and letting everyone else do the fighting. The Nazis are probably still not very popular in Ukraine, even as they are seen as the ultimate anti-Russia guys because Russia = USSR = the people who won WW2 against their hero Hitler.
There is the SS and then there is the Dirlewanger brigade ...which is even by SS standards the worst of the worst.
According to the historian Timothy Snyder, "in all the theaters of the Second World War, few could compete in cruelty with Oskar Dirlewanger. He has also been described as the "most evil man in the SS" and as "perhaps the most sadistic of all commanders of World War II.
Yeah taking inspiration from this guy tells you all you need to know.
Considering these fellas are still alive Russia should take its mission of denazification more serious.
Edit: for those unaware, Timothy Snyder is a big proponent of the double genocide theory - up there with Ann Applebaum and Robert Conquest - equivocates the Nazis and Soviets as being equally bad because of totalitarianism.
This time he's correct though, Dirlewanger was one of the worst. You can read some bits even in wiki about him and his brigade, i won't link because of intense CW's in entire article.
Are those Stielhandgranate in the emblem? Surely they're just very interested in WW1 weapons and not the other one! Nothing to do with an SS brigade :clueless:
Soon they're going to just have a picture of Hitler as their logo and western press will explain that it's complicated and in fact that's not Hitler but his non-evil twin that wasn't that bad ackhually.