Two cyclists pedal down a street in Mariupol where traces of war are visible. /
The Russian attacks have made Andriy Biletsky and Denis Projipenko the last defense of Mariupol and many stop looking down on them to admire their fight
Andriy Biletsky’s Telegram account denounced this past Wednesday the use of chemical weapons by the Russian Army in Mariupol. In the besieged city, Denis Projipenko resists entrenched with his men, surrounded by Chechen troops. They are not just any two men, nor just pawns in the struggle between the two countries for seven weeks. They are two very important pieces in this conflict and the two most prominent leaders of the Azov Battalion, the Ukrainian paramilitary group with a nationalist and far-right ideology. Vladimir Putin was referring to them when he accused Ukraine of being a “nest of Nazis”. Their attack has made them the last defense of the citizens who are still trapped and many have stopped looking at them with contempt to admire their fight and thank their defense.
Andriy Biletsky, a 43-year-old historian well known in far-right circles, founded the unit in 2014. Initially made up of volunteers, when separatist movements began in Donetsk and Luhansk, they joined the defense of Ukraine. That summer they participated in the reconquest of Mariupol, by autumn they were already functioning as a professional regiment and soon after they became part of the Ukrainian defense forces and the National Guard. They are, therefore, under the orders of the Government of kyiv.
The origin of the controversial battalion must be found in the Patriots of Ukraine organization, created in 2005 by Biletsky himself. White supremacism and anti-immigration ideas are not lacking in its ideological base, according to a report published by the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation.
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A native of Kharkov, he is one of the creators of the Pravy Sektor-Right Sector movement, which played a leading role in the Maidan revolution. In 2019, already removed from the Azov command, he tried it in politics but his party, National Body, did not achieve representation. He then disappeared from the public scene. Until Putin attacked Ukraine on February 24.
His right-hand man is the no less controversial Denis Projipenko, who has risen from one of Dynamo Kyiv’s hottest ultras to a national hero of Ukraine. Commander in the Azov Battalion, he currently leads the defense of Mariupol. Moscow does not hide its desire to finish him off. And it is not surprising since he has been fighting the Russians on the front lines of Donbas for years.
Throughout the war it has been said on several occasions that he had been eliminated, but a few days ago he came to light to testify that he was still alive and that the situation in Mariúpol is desperate. “We are performing miracles.” With that phrase he describes how the resistance is being in the port city. On March 19, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded him the title of ‘Hero of Ukraine’ “for his bravery, for his effective actions in repelling enemy attacks, for defending” the coastal city. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is said to have put a price on his head: half a million dollars. Mariupol is surrounded by ‘kadyrovsky’.
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