Azovites spoke to a packed auditorium and displayed several neo-Nazi symbols during their presentation
Most Americans have only encountered one perspective about the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, either through the corporate news or Big Tech social media platforms. On October 1st, 2022, Stanford University hosted recently-released POWs from the notorious Azov Battalion in an apparent bid to normalize the extremist group. Stanford’s own Center for International Security and Cooperation, which keeps an ongoing profile of the group, maintains that, “Azov, and the Ukrainian far-right more broadly, mixes classic right wing themes, including antisemitism, ethnocentrism, homophobia, and racism, with more populist economic proposals arguing for a greater role of the state in society.” The elite university recently had to apologize to Jewish students following an investigative report that found it had established quotas on Jewish students until the 1950s. Why not demand an even greater apology for the fact that Stanford has chosen to host neo-Nazi militants in the year 2022?
The Azov Battalion at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation
The Azov members, upon their release from a prisoner swap, arrived in the U.S. in September and have since conducted a propaganda tour across the United States to gin up dwindling support for the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Upon their arrival, the men were greeted by California Congressman Adam Schiff. Schiff, a Democrat and one of the main purveyors of the Russiagate hoax during the Trump administration, unsurprisingly has led the calls for the U.S. to continue funding and arming the coup regime it installed in Kiev in 2014. In fact, the Azov fighters received a bipartisan welcome from Congress members, though the meetings went virtually unreported in the mainstream press. Azovites Artur Lypka and Vladyslav Zhaivoronok spoke to a packed auditorium and displayed several neo-Nazi symbols during their presentation. The Stanford Daily’s Cameron Duran later glowingly recapped the event:
Between the moments of mourning and reverence, the event was full of joy, laughter and connection among the Ukrainian community. Several families with young children were in attendance, and some attendees brought flowers and flags for the speakers. Many wore Ukrainian-flag-colored accessories, T-shirts with slogans supporting Ukraine, flower crowns and bright-colored traditional clothing.
What actually occurred was Azov members fear mongering to impressionable youth in attendance that a loss for Ukraine will mean impending doom for the rest of Europe. Trying to evoke fear among the crowd, Zhaivoronok said “Ukraine is a gate, if it falls, that’s it.”
Since the special military operation began in February, anti-Russia hawks have pushed the narrative that a loss for Ukraine would spell disaster for NATO and the west. Yet it is Europe’s support for Ukraine and economic war on Russia that have led to its present economic and political crises. At Stanford, of course, the recent sabotage of Germany’s Nordstream pipelines and growing protests over energy prices were not topics of discussion. The event functioned as an Azov fundraiser, as speakers solicited donations from the crowd of college students via a QR code projected on the screen. The Azov fundraiser tour’s next stop has not been disclosed, but this is unlikely to be its last public appearance.
A projected QR code at the event leads to an Azov fundraising page
Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antanov condemned Stanford’s decision to host the Azov militants. “It would appear that in its maniacal drive to tarnish and cancel Russia, the US is prepared to glorify Nazism,” Antanov said. The Azov Battalion’s fear-mongering tour to raise funds reveals their growing desperation. Western media reports have claimed for months that the Russian military is woefully backward and that Putin faces imminent humiliation. So why the sudden tour of Ukrainian POWs here in the U.S.? With the growing energy crisis in Europe, we should expect similar actions in the future by the State Department to normalize and manufacture support for its neo-Nazi puppet regime occupying Kiev.
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