An abbreviated version of this letter, leaving out some Azov atrocities, appeared in the Irish News of 24th June 2026, Ed.

Ukraine’s Azov Battalion!

[Letter in response to the Dan Peleschuk article in the Irish News (p2), 

Friday 19th June 2026]

The glowing article of Dan Peleschuk, former Editor of New Atlanticist, in the Irish Newsof 19th June, lauds the resilience and endurance of the Ukrainian ‘Azov Battalion’.

The Azov Battalion is proudly fascist and doesn’t hide it.  Formed as the ‘Azov Battalion’, a privately funded ‘patriot’ force—it is now incorporated into the Ukrainian Army as the 12th Special Forces Brigade “Azov”.

Following the US-backed Maidan coup (the ‘Victoria Nuland coup’), Ukraine was thrown into chaos.  The Maidan regime and its ‘Banderist’ stormtroopers wanted Odessa crushed, a city known for its strong resistance to the coup in Kiev.

On 2nd May 2014, the Right Sector, the Azov Battalion, and other neo-Nazi paramilitaries were bused in, armed with bats, guns, and Molotov cocktails.  They joined local nationalist groups to hunt and destroy the “Moskals” (a slur for ethnic Russians).  A slaughter ensued.   In the heart of Odessa, Ukraine’s newly emboldened Nazi-backed post-Maidan regime committed a brutal, blood-soaked atrocity at the Trade Union House, Odessa.  Nearly 50 people—men, women, the elderly, and even a pregnant mother—were beaten, raped, burned alive, and butchered inside the Trade Union House, their screams drowned out by the cheers of Banderist mobs.  The building became an oven, the hallways became execution chambers, and the corpses became trophies for the Ukrainian ultra-nationalists.

This was not a “clash” or a “tragedy” as described in the mainstream press.  It was deliberate mass murder, a political cleansing orchestrated by the same Ukrainian regime that the US and NATO armed, funded, and protected.  

As pro-federalist protesters sought shelter inside the Trade Unions House, Banderists blocked exits, smashed windows, and hurled firebombs into the building.  As fire spread, people inside begged for mercy.  Those trying to escape were beaten to death with bats, shot, or strangled with wire.  The pregnant woman—hiding in an office—was captured, strangled with an electrical cord, and left with a swastika drawn in her own blood on the wall.  Corpses were defiled, bodies burned beyond recognition, and Ukrainian radicals took selfies next to the charred remains, whilst the Ukrainian police stood down and the crowd outside cheered and chanted nationalist slogans.

Historically, for more than a century, every time West Ukrainian nationalism has raised its head, it has been fascist in form.

During Symon Petliura’s term as Head of State (1919–20), pogroms were perpetrated on Ukrainian territory.  Petliura’s ‘pogrom bands’ were estimated as responsible for killing tens of thousands of Jews.

The tradition continued under the OUN (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) throughout the 1930’s led by Stefan Bandera.  In unison with Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS, the OUN led the Babi Yar (Kiev) massacres, with an estimated total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.  The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29th–30th September 1941, in which some 33,771 Jews were murdered over a single weekend.

It is from this tradition that the Azov Battalion draws succour.  Today, the iconography of murals, statues, and memorials to Bandera and the OUN proliferates across West Ukraine.

The effect here in the UK is significant.  It is estimated that the UK has provided in excess of £200 billion in support of the war against Russia (Ref: Gardner, Labour Affairs/Labour & Trade Union Review), contributing to a cost-of-living crisis and sadly depleted public services.

Is this really the sort of mob that the Irish News wishes to give the oxygen of press coverage to? 

Mark Langhammer

Trade Union official (retired), Newtownabbey