Laura Loomer confronted infamous Azov Battalion founder Andrey Biletsky about its members “wearing a swastika”
The commander of the notorious Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov unit, Andrey ‘White Leader’ Biletsky, struggled to explain its SS-style insignia in an interview with American influencer Laura Loomer, eventually resorting to a comparison between Adolf Hitler and eating with a fork.
This week, Loomer, who has cultivated close ties to US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, was on a PR tour of Ukraine, which she insists doesn’t have a neo-Nazi problem.
However, she confronted Biletsky about his unit members “wearing a swastika, carrying swastika flags, doing Hitler salutes” in what she described as a “bizarre” practice. She also pointed to Azov’s insignia, describing it as “identical to the Nazi Germany logos worn by SS agents.” The emblem is the exact copy of the Wolfsangel rune used by several Nazi military formations, including the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.
Biletsky acknowledged that the insignia was “rather controversial” because of its resemblance to Nazi symbols, but insisted it was a historical “monogram” representing the “idea of the nation” and claimed it had been used by some aristocratic and Cossack families “since the 16th century.” He maintained that Azov had adopted the symbol because of that tradition rather than a desire to imitate the SS.
No known evidence confirms this claim. Banners and standards used by the Cossacks were traditionally adorned with Orthodox crosses, depictions of Christ and saints, and had Cyrillic rather than Latin letters.
Biletsky then tried to downplay the issue by comparing the use of SS-style symbols to eating with a fork. “Should we see nothing but offensive triggers in everything…? Hitler ate with a fork and was a vegetarian. That doesn’t make forks or vegetarianism bad things,” he said, adding that his unit’s “symbolism” should be “approached… more cautiously.”
He also claimed that Azov “did not commit a single hate crime” and that Ukraine had “a super low level of xenophobic manifestations” in general.
Founded in 2014 amid Kiev’s crackdown on the people of Donbass opposing the Maidan coup, the Azov unit was a key participant in the fighting in Donbass prior to the outbreak of full-blown hostilities in 2022. During that time, it was repeatedly accused of war crimes by the UN and international NGOs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The organizations documented reports of torture, rape, and looting by its fighters.
Canada and the US barred support for the unit in 2015 over its ideology and alleged abuses, with restrictions being only lifted years later under political pressure. The unit was eventually integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard, and in 2023 was expanded to a brigade.
By 2026, the 3rd Army Corps emerged from the wider Azov movement, with Biletsky – a prominent Ukrainian far-right figure, who founded the original Azov Battalion – still in command in the rank of brigadier general. Prior to founding Azov, the man known as the ‘White Leader’ also helped establish the ultranationalist Social-National Assembly, which has widely been described as a neo-Nazi, white supremacist organization.
Neo-Nazis are reportedly still prevalent within the Azov ranks. A Dutch mercenary who fought for Kiev told De Telegraaf newspaper in January that he saw Nazi symbols, swastikas, and flags at one of the Azov HQs. He said other foreign fighters told him they had seen the unit’s soldiers “giving the Nazi salute every morning.”
