There are a lot of reports out there that this is Photoshopped, but that is not the case.
The Azov Battalion above is one of the main militias fighting alongside the Ukrainian military in the Donbass. Please understand that of the entire Ukrainian force there, only 2/3 are regular Ukrainian army. The rest of mercenaries and volunteers of various types and there is a large contingent of these irregular militias. The militias fight right alongside the regular army and they are just as well-armed as the army if not better-armed. And most of them are, yes, real Nazis all right.
You have to understand that Ukrainian nationalism has its roots in fascism. Most of the main Ukrainian nationalist heroes were fascists or Nazis.
The same is true of many of the heroes of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nationalism.
A lot of the modern Hungarian and Romanian nationalists are also Nazis – the Arrow Cross in Hungary and the Iron Cross in Romania. The Jobbik Party in Hungary, which won 17% in the last election, is the heir to the Arrow Cross.
Poland and Finland had fascist governments in the interwar period and Finland had a Nazi-allied government in World War 2. That was one of the main reasons that the USSR attacked them, but you never hear that.
Nazism is still extremely popular in Croatia. Some guess that 50% of Croatians today could be described as “Nazis” in the same way that the Ukrainians are.
Probably 70% of the Maidan crowd were Nazis. We know this because 70% of the people on the Maidan said that Stepan Bandera was a hero.
It is an unfortunate truism that in that part of world – in the eastern part of Europe – fascism, Nazism and National Socialism never went out of style and are still quite popular today – much more popular than they are in Western Europe, even in Germany. The non-racist type of fascism as in Francoism and Mussolinism is quite popular in Italy and Spain today. The roots of the Spanish Right are in Francoism and the roots of the Italian Right are in Mussolinism. These roots are carefully hidden by such folks as Mr. Aznar and Mr. Berlusconi, but they are there all right.
