That assumes Azov is a run-of-the-mill Neo-Nazi group while they are much more. The white führer — that’s what Azov’s leader goes by btw — has said that his mission is to, “to spur the white races of the world towards a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen”.

Before the war you had western media reporting on them in a matter of fact way:

In January 2018, Azov rolled out its street patrol unit called National Druzhyna to “restore” order in the capital, Kyiv. Instead, the unit carried out pogroms against the Roma community and attacked members of the LGBTQ community. — alJazeera

A 2016 report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian law. The report detailed incidents over a period from November 2015-February 2016 where Azov had embedded their weapons and forces in used civilian buildings, and displaced residents after looting civilian properties. The report also accused the battalion of raping and torturing detainees in the Donbas region.

The Azov Battalion is emerging as a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist (RWE) network. This group maintains its own ‘Western Outreach Office’ to help recruit and attract foreign fighters that travel to train and connect with people from like-minded violent organizations from across the globe. Operatives from the outreach office travel around Europe to promote the organization and proselytize its mission of white supremacy. In July 2018, German-language fliers were distributed among the visitors at a right-wing rock festival in Thuringia, inviting them to be part of the Azov battalion: ‘join the ranks of the best’ to ‘save Europe from extinction.’ It has also established youth camps, sporting recreation centers, lecture halls, and far-right education programs, including some that teach children as young as 9 years old military tactics and far-right ideology. This aggressive approach to networking serves one of the Azov Battalion’s overarching objectives to transform areas under its control in Ukraine into the primary hub for transnational white supremacy. — Soufan Center

We are concerned about rising nationalism in Ukraine and the government’s seeming unwillingness to rein it in. Ukraine’s international donors and supporters should be very worried,” — Tanya Cooper, Ukraine researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Kiev have in fact issued multiple statements denouncing the veneration of such figures. In January 2022, the diplomatic mission described that year’s annual “Torch March” commemorating Bandera’s birthday as “desecrating the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine.” Far-right extremist groups in Ukraine have also gained political currency in the past decade, none more chilling than Svoboda (formerly the Social National Party of Ukraine), whose leader claimed the country was controlled by a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” Svoboda has sent several members to Ukraine’s Parliament, including one who called the Holocaust a “bright period” in human history, according to Foreign Policy — Times of Israel

No one should be giving Neo-Nazis a pass because they are on the “good side”; which should have been the line that Ukraine took as it already has a horrifying history of anti-semitism. You can support any side you want but sidelining a very real problem because Putin used it as a propaganda point is beyond ridiculous.

The Nazi thing isn’t Russian propaganda though? Of course Putin doesn’t stop spouting that as one of his reasons for the invasion, or maybe even blowing it out of proportion, but Ukraine does in fact have a Neo-Nazi problem. Haven’t you seen the Bandera worship that goes on in there, or the Azov fascists? Ignoring it outright as Russia propaganda will be detrimental for post-war reconstruction, especially as inaction might just lead to the Neo-Nazis taking power.