The ‘Black book – atrocities of modern-day Ukrainian Banderite neo-Nazis 2014-2023’ was published by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Back in 2014, the Ministry started collecting evidence and publishing White Papers on Ukrainian atrocities in the Donbass, and each year until the very start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) their number had only been growing up. The authors of the Black Book traveled to areas liberated from the Nazis, talked with military and civilians, women and children, and recorded their testimonies. More than 600 people were interviewed. The book describes in detail the torture and mistreatment of people.
The book opens with an excerpt from the book Ordinary Fascism and compares it with actions of the Ukrainian Nazis, whose impunity convinced them that they would not have to answer for these crimes. They were so enthralled by their bestial game that a copy of a Wehrmacht map was found in a bunker occupied by Azov regiment, of territories around Mariupol cleared by their German predecessors. They imagined that they were Nazis fighting against the Soviet Union…
The military hardware used by the Ukrainian armed forces and National battalions was emblazoned with Nazi crosses and SS emblems, and Tattoos with Hitler, Bandera, and Nazi symbols are found on the bodies of captured and killed militants. One brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was named “Edelweiss”, in honor of the Nazi division of the same name that exterminated Jews, partisans, and prisoners of war. The chevrons of the SS divisions “Das Reich”, “Totenkopf” and “Galicia” became popular. And this whole horror theater was happening with the active support by the United States and the European Union, which pumped up the nationalists with arms and sent out military instructors to Ukraine.
Russophobia, supported by neo-Nazi ideology and spiced up with dollars, resulted in peaceful, innocent people tortured to death in dirty basements.
People in their testimonies talk about what they and their friends had to endure. Kozub Nadezhda, who at the time of the survey lived in Mariupol, Donetsk People’s Republic, recalled, “The people from Azov were extremely aggressive towards men and killed many of them, and many other men went missing. I know about many such cases, I heard from my friends that their relatives had been found killed in wooded areas after having had conflicts with the Azov people. I know that sometime in 2020, I left home at 11 am for the first shift at my work and the bus stop was completely cordoned off. Later, I learned that it was the guys from our work who were killed. I personally knew these guys… I don’t remember their first and last names. After the second shift, the guys came in after work to play pool. At the “Moscow” poolroom.
Some men from Azov men then walked in drunk. They behaved like they were looking for trouble. Our guys are peaceful people and to avoid conflict, they simply turned around and left. The Azov men caught up with them and cut one of our guys’ throat from ear to ear. The second guy suffered multiple knife wounds. He didn’t survive either. One of our boys survived though. He was hit on the head with a rifle butt, lying in a pool of blood, so they thought he was dead… Well, somehow this boy was patched up, survived, and then he packed up and left, without even telling his family where he was going, because he was afraid of persecution. Well, on the Mariupol website I read that it might have been just a drunken brawl between locals, so no one got punished.
One day I was on my way to work and saw a man outside School N 61 arguing with some Azov men. He was quite drunk. I asked him what the problem was, why he cursed so much. He said that one of his close relatives had been dragged into this schoolhouse and tortured with a hot pipe, burning to death. These are not people. That’s all I can say”.
This is just one of many such witness accounts. The neo-Nazi battalions unleashed a punitive operation against the local people with particular brutality and hatred; all of these cases have been collected and documented. The book ends with the following words: “The crimes committed by the militants of the Kyiv regime are similar to what the Nazis and their sidekicks did during the Great Patriotic War. We must know who we are fighting against. How animals, wearing the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine are killing women, children and old people today. How they finish off prisoners of war, hide behind civilians and brutalize defenseless people.
Make no mistake – the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv and its Western patrons must be sure of the following:
- Every crime committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis will be investigated.
- All evidence will be carefully collected and strictly documented.
- These crimes have no statute of limitations.
- Punishment will be inevitable.
