Azov Lobby Goes to Brussels

A couple days ago, representatives of the notorious Azov Brigade in the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) “held numerous meetings at the NATO headquarters” in Brussels. Among other NATO officials, the Azov delegation met with Marie-Doha Besancenot, the Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy. They also participated in an event at the European Policy Centre, a think tank partially funded by the EU. Yesterday they met with the “Group of Friends of Ukraine in the European Parliament,” and Marta Wytrykowska, deputy head of the Ukraine division at the Diplomatic Service of the European Union.

“Jedi,” whose real name is Serhii Rotchuk, or Serhii Grushin, led the delegation. He was one of the Azovites invited to play golf at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington earlier this year. “Jedi” is one of the leaders of the NGU Azov brigade’s medical service. He emphasized that Azov trains according to NATO standards. In his oldest Instagram post, from 2019, he is wearing a “Rock Against Communism” shirt produced by a National Socialist Black Metal brand affiliated with the hardcore neo-Nazi group “Wotanjugend,” which originated in Russia. Last year, he expressed interest in a book by Léon Degrelle, the Nazi collaborator who led the far-right Rexist Party in Belgium.

The more surprising Azov representative was Nestor Barchuk, who seemed out of place as an alleged “fighter.” Other reports have clarified that he is Azov’s “coordinator of international relations,” or perhaps more likely, “the brigade’s legal advisor.” Barchuk is the international relations manager of the DEJURE Foundation, a “leading NGO in judicial reform” with numerous international backers, including the EU, Council of Europe, U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, the Netherlands, and Germany. Since 2021, Barchuk has written at least four articles (three with his boss, Mykhailo Zhernakov) for the Atlantic Council, an influential Washington think tank that counts NATO among its financial supporters.

“Russian propaganda was successful,” Barchuk told the European Policy Centre, referring to “those narratives of Russian propaganda that we are Nazi, and we are far-right.” Sitting next to him, “Jedi” reached for a glass of water, and looked like he might burst out laughing. “We don’t have any political views,” Barchuk even said, but backtracked as his co-panelist shot him a funny look. “I mean, you understand. We don’t have any… mmm… any kind any kind of… uhh… groups … any kind of politically oriented groups in the brigade.” In the spring of 2022, just before Azov surrendered in Mariupol, Barchuk elaborated in an article for the prominent English-language outlet, New Voice of Ukraine, “Far-right fighters either left Azov voluntarily or were expelled from the unit by the new command in 2017.” Perhaps he felt uncomfortable to claim this in front of the smirking “Jedi,” who first joined Azov in 2015.

Nestor Barchuk, an amateur DJ, is apparently an NGO nepo baby who is happy to play the part of liberal Azov spokesperson. This is a new role for Barchuk, so it’s unclear if Brussels was a one-time gig. His mother, Myroslava Barchuk, is a TV presenter and vice-president of PEN Ukraine. His father, Danylo Lubkivsky, a former deputy minister for foreign affairs (2014), is the executive director of the Kyiv Security Forum, “Ukraine’s Premier International Platform.” In 2019, Lubkivsky joined the Coordination Council of the “Capitulation Resistance Movement” that allied with the Azov movement to threaten a new “Maidan revolution” against Volodymyr Zelensky if he negotiated with Russia.

The rest of the Azov delegation consisted of three women — Anastasia Lytvynenko, an Azov veteran from the siege of Mariupol who was freed in a prisoner exchange; Yevhenia Synelnyk, the sister of another Azov fighter that remains in Russian captivity; and Marianna Khomeriki, a former press officer of the Azov Regiment (2017–21), who has taken up a similar role in the NGU Azov-affiliated Association of Azovstal Defenders’ Families.

Khomeriki actually participated in the European Policy Centre event as a representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which Wikipedia describes as “a temporary auxiliary body of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine for coordinating the activities of various authorities, law enforcement agencies, and public associations.” This body is led by military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, who might be the main patron of the Azov movement at this point. Budanov’s spokesperson Andriy Yusov, another former coordinator of the “Capitulation Resistance Movement,” reportedly heads the “Working Group of the Coordination Headquarters.”

The neo-Nazi “Jedi” delivered the final words at the EPC: “We should understand that this is a question of our global security, and our security of our western civilization.” Other speakers at this event— “Justice for Ukrainian POWs & the Path to Freedom” — included Andriy Kostin, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, who participated remotely, and Pekka Toveri, the former military intelligence chief of Finland (2019–20), who now chairs the EU Parliament’s Ukraine Delegation.

It’s been said that “if you happen to watch Finnish television now, and are looking at any coverage of the Russian war in Ukraine, you’ll probably see Major General Toveri.” He has argued that “the only way to have lasting peace in Europe” requires the integration of Ukraine “to our economic and defence systems through membership in EU and NATO.” But even if that never happens, Ukrainian neo-Nazis are still on track to be integrated in the US-led military-industrial complex and western intelligence services.

The day before the Azov delegation received a warm welcome at the NATO headquarters, the commander of the Azov Brigade paid tribute to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), as far-right nationalists do every year on October 14. The UPA, the 1940s paramilitary arm of the OUN-B, or “Banderite” wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, hunted Jews in the forests of western Ukraine and waged a massive ethnic cleansing campaign against the region’s Polish population. By the early 1950s, the CIA tried and failed to utilize the UPA as a “stay-behind army,” but it whitewashed Ukrainian Nazi collaborators throughout the Cold War. “I am sure that the UPA fighters, looking at your daily service, are proud of you and smiling because the defense of Ukraine is in good hands,” Azov commander Denys Prokopenko said in an online post that he wrote in English. “They couldn’t have dreamt of better descendants.”