about political ideology and more about patriotism, and just moral outrage of what the russians are doing, in ukraine, especially with all of the civilian casualties that we ve been seeing, and all of the, you know, the brutal potential war crimes that have been unfolding by russia, so yes, i mean it s an outdated view, and you have to understand with what vladimir putin is saying is something about a very small amount of ukrainian society, even the analyst we spoke to, the fighters we spoke to, they say there is still extremism among our ranks but a very small portion and one clear indication of how small the far right elements are in ukraine is the political arm of the azov ran for elections a couple of years ago, and they only generated about 2% of the entire vote. even when they combined with other far right parties. so the battalion is extremely
complicated. the azov battalion of today denies being motivated by any neo nazi or fascist ideology. they say they have grown to include fighters of all different ideology, though they admit they still count neo nazis among their ranks. now, russian president vladimir putin has tried to use the azov battalion ties to the far right as justification for his campaign of so-called denazi fication in ukraine and we will talk more about that in a little later on in the show. it s no secret that war makes for strange bed fellows, ironically, the most famous example of this is probably the alliance between western countries and the soviet union in world war ii, between 1939 and 1941, almost two years, the soviet union and germany, nazi germany, were allies, and that worked until hitler decided to invade the soviet union in 1941. but the question of how to think about the azov battalion looms
large today. the washington post, along with three other post reporters, published a new detailed report today, examining the azov battalion s role in the current fight against russia. he interviewed fighters from across the battalion as they shot at pictures of vladimir putin for target practice. some of the shoulders with whom he spoke had neo nazi tattoos and espoused far right ideologies. the leader of the battalion told the washington post that their force now includes writers and other liberals, even members of the extreme left, and anti-fascists, quote, we are at war for the very existence of ukraine at the moment. in the past month, i never asked a person who came to join us about his political views. today, ukrainians have only one option of political orientation, and for or against ukraine, end quote. he told the washington post, that they re trying to weed out the neo nazi tattoos and other symbols among azov fighters but
battalion, the battalion has been a key part of the ukrainian defense of mariupol but it s a mish why that was formed on the basis of far right racist ideology. the reporters that been interviewing members of the group and will help us make sense of it when we come back. p sense of it when we come back. (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you re jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren t you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan?