These images show how Azov special forces troops hunted down and destroyed two Russian BMP-3s in one day.
The footage shows a series of bombs being dropped on one of the Russian infantry fighting vehicles from a drone before the footage cuts to the same vehicle burning after having been successfully destroyed.
The video then shows smoke rising from a wooded area, with flames then visible on screen. The footage then shows the smoldering remains of the second BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle from above.
The footage was first obtained from Andriy Biletsky, 42, on the afternoon of Monday, August 1.
Biletsky was the first commander of the Azov Battalion and is currently the leader of the far-right Ukrainian political party National Corps. The party only won 2.15 percent of the national vote as part of a coalition in 2019 and does not hold any seats in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament.
The footage was then relayed by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, which operates under the umbrella of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information, as well as by the Chernihiv Regional Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support, both on Monday evening.
Biletsky said that the images show the “work of SSO ‘Azov'” in the “Zaporozhye direction”, which is located in south-eastern Ukraine. ‘SSO’ stands for the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine. It is a branch of the military that is exclusively made up of Spetsnaz (special forces) units.
Biletsky said that they had destroyed “two BMP-3s in one day”. He added: “The first car was destroyed by an attack copter [drone], the second by an Azov tank.”
The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security and the Chernihiv Regional Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support both said: “Soldiers of SSO ‘Azov’ hunted down two BMP-3s in one day. ‘Demilitarization’ of the occupiers and their equipment took place in the Zaporozhye direction.
“The enemy machine in the field was destroyed with the help of an attack copter [drone], and the equipment in the forest belt – with an ‘Azov’ tank. The crews were also successfully eliminated.”
The Azov Regiment, also known as the Azov Battalion, is a notorious group of soldiers who were officially incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine in 2014, after recapturing Mariupol from pro-Russian separatists in June that year.
The Azov Regiment is said to have begun as a far-right, neo-Nazi group that started out as an urban militia and a political party. It has since expanded and, through service to Ukraine, has been incorporated into the Armed Forces. Azov, on a national level, failed in past elections to win any seats in the Ukrainian Parliament via its political branch.
Azov was originally a paramilitary militia known as the “men in black”. Its integration into Ukraine’s National Guard and the recruitment of many soldiers who were unaffiliated politically is said to have marginalized its most extreme elements and it is now often described by Western military experts as being “anti-Russian” and “ultranationalist”.
Azov made international headlines for its defense of the city of Mariupol before it was eventually overrun by Russian forces, forcing the notorious troops to seek shelter in the Azovstal steelworks. They eventually surrendered to Russian forces after weeks of siege.
Russia has repeatedly justified its illegal invasion of Ukraine by claiming that it is on a mission to “denazify” the country, despite President Volodymyr Zelensky being Jewish – he lost relatives in the Holocaust – and despite Ukraine’s far-right coalition only winning 2.15 percent of the national vote in 2019.
Russia’s “denazification” rhetoric has drawn widespread condemnation from world leaders and scholars, who argue that it is a distortion of history and factually inaccurate. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, among others, has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “misrepresented and misappropriated Holocaust history”.
A long list of historians and other scholars signed a letter – published in the Jewish Journal and by the International Center on Nazi Persecution, among others – at the end of February, in the early days of the Russian invasion, stating in part: “Russian propaganda has painted the Ukrainian state as Nazi and fascist ever since Russian special forces first entered Ukraine in 2014, annexing the Crimea and fomenting the conflict in the Donbas, which has smoldered for eight long years. It was propaganda in 2014. It remains propaganda today.”
While acknowledging that Ukraine does have some right-wing extremists – “like any other country” – they also argued that it did not justify Russia’s aggression and mischaracterizations.
Zenger News contacted Andriy Biletsky for further comment, as well as the Russian Ministry of Defense, but had not received a reply at the time of writing.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what the Kremlin is calling a “special military operation”. Tuesday marks the 160th day of the invasion.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that between February 24 and August 2, Russia had lost about 41,170 personnel, 1,768 tanks, 4,014 armored combat vehicles, 936 artillery units, 259 multiple launch rocket systems, 117 air defense systems, 223 warplanes, 191 helicopters, 739 drones, 174 cruise missiles, 15 warships, 2,914 motor vehicles and fuel tankers, and 82 units of special equipment.
Russia has claimed that its casualties have been much lower, but provides infrequent updates on its latest figures.
Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, has warned that nuclear annihilation is only one miscalculation away at the opening of a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New York. He said that the world is facing “nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War”.
He added that the war in Ukraine was a significant factor and said: “Humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a letter addressed to the attendees of the NPT conference in New York on Monday that there could be “no winners” in the event of nuclear war and that it should “never be unleashed”.
But in February, Putin warned outsiders that any attempt to interfere with his invasion of Ukraine would “lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history”. He then put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.
U.S. Secretary Of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply concerned” that Russia is using a captured Ukrainian nuclear power plant – the largest in the country – as a military base and firing on Ukrainian forces from around it. He labeled Moscow’s actions “the height of irresponsibility”. The U.S. has accused Russia of using the nuclear power plant as a “nuclear shield”.
The U.S. is sending over $500 million in additional weaponry to Ukraine, including ammunition for rocket launchers and artillery. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, 56, said on Monday that Ukraine had received four additional HIMARS – High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems – from the U.S.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that his country is donating a mobile DNA laboratory to the Ukrainian authorities to help ensure that Russia’s war crimes do not go unpunished.
