Sorosites vs Azovites

No my dears, you must die for democracy. Stalker defeated by Sorosites. Deconstructing the terms Sorosite/Azovite. Arsen Avakov, protect us from Soroses, Moskals, pederasts, and Kikes

I often get asked whether there’ll be a nationalist coup in Ukraine any time soon, and I'm always skeptical. To begin with, because the nationalists already had their coup, back in 2014. Ever since, they’ve been defending the ever-fragile results.

As we’ll see today, plenty of nationalists like to whine about how the liberals excessively monopolized the fruits of the revolution won by rightwingers. But the fact remains that the nationalists occupy a subordinate position, kept afloat by western countries to fight their enemies. Without funding, Ukraine collapses, and the nationalists, as they joke, would have to flee to Argentina.

It’s the west that controls events in Ukraine, and they aren’t stupid enough to plunge a country already on the retreat at the frontlines into a situation whiffing of civil war. More importantly, Ukraine is controllable as is. And as we’ll see today, Ukraine’s nationalists aren’t doing too well in political competition with the liberals anyway. While the nationalists have immensely grown their political capital in wartime, they haven’t often been able to translate that into occupying seats of power.

Today’s topics:

• Deconstructing the terms Azovites and Sorosites, ‘nationalists’ and ‘liberals’

• Nazi punk and Nazi rap. Odes to nationalist patrons from Armenian oligarch Arsen Avakov to head spook Budanov

• Sorosites accuse Azovites of leftist deviations

• Top Sorosite Portnikov claims that talk of mobilizing the elite is regressive feudalism

• Azovites lose out to Sorosites in competition for military ombudsman and anti-corruption council

• ‘Tales of the IV Reich’ claims that ‘Russians have come to power in Ukraine’ and accuses the government of wasting the best nationalists in the east and Kursk

• I discuss why I find talk of a nationalist coup unlikely. The Trump-Azovite connection vs the Democrat Sorosites

• Azovites call for ‘Einsatzgruppen tactics’ against ‘pro-Russian’ Ukrainians in the east

Sorosites vs Azovites: historical deconstruction

This is often described, not particularly accurately, a struggle between liberals and nationalists. Before we get to the latest upsurge of division between the two, let’s deconstruct the terms a little. It’ll help us understand the real political forces at stake.

‘Sorosites’ and ‘Azovites’ are terms commonly used in Ukrainian discourse, though it should be noted that the Azovites tend to call their enemies ‘Sorosites’ freely, while the Sorosites themselves don’t tend to call their enemies ‘Azovites’, due to the huge societal prestige of the Azov batallion. Instead, they come up with various theories singling out ‘fake nationalists’ as ‘Kremlin agents’. They can’t just say that Ukrainian nationalists are bad, after all.

‘Sorosites’ refers to the ecosystem of journalist, politicians, and NGOs united around the slogans of ‘anti-corruption’, ‘democracy’, and ‘western values’. Financially, of course, they depend directly on western support. Many work for George (now Alexander) Soros’s ‘Renaissance Foundation’ and associated grant networks, hence the name ‘Sorosites’, or ‘grant-feeders’. ‘Sorosites’ in Russian and Ukrainian plays on the term ‘piglets’, or ‘sorosyenki’.

‘Azovites’ refers to the militarized (and paramilitary) nationalists, grouped around the Azov movement. They have a range of units directly under their control in the army, most importantly the 3rd Assault Brigade (part of the army), the 12th Special Purpose Brigade ‘Azov’ (in the national guard), and the Kraken Regiment (part of Budanov’s Main Directorate of Intelligence).

A march by Azov’s political wing, the National Corps, in 2016

They also enjoy the highest prestige of all army units, due to their high military effectiveness, PR capacities, western support, and well-known role in events like the 2022 siege of Mariupol. The Azov movement is certainly not only military, and boasts a range of political organizations. One of the most interesting such organizations is the openly neo-nazi Centuria military order.

The Azov movement emerged in 2014 as a group of paramilitary forces working closely with new interior minister Arsen Avakov to purge eastern Ukraine of military and civilian opponents to the only-just-victorious euromaidan revolution. Until 2022, this Armenian oligarch would be the main patron of the Azov movement - they’d already worked as his street muscle against rival businessmen and politicians in Kharkov since the 2000s.

Andriy Biletsky, head of the Azov movement, is second from left. Avakov is to his right.

Here’s a song called ‘Sad song about Avakov’ by the Closed Society and its friends, a Ukrainian nazi punk band whose name is a dig at Soros’s concept of the ‘Open Society’. Note the nationalist disappointment with the liberal monopolization of the post-maidan political space, a classic motif:

Yesterday, I thought
That on my land
Something strange is happening
All the people have turned bitter

Where has everything flown to?
Where is the starry Maidan?
Where are the fighters for freedom
Who fear no wounds?

The people needed him
Like a shining solstice
Not a parody or an idiot
He achieved everything in life

A poet and a businessman, probably has a long…
To every human request, he always says, “No problem.”

He’s a minister of the people; he’s endured hardships
To do what no one had done before him

Arsen Avakov, protect us from
Soroses, Moskals, pederasts, and Kikes
Bravely defending our fragile worlds of colorful dreams

Let them curse the angel
Let them bark like dogs
All the liberals know
Who protected them

Despite crimes
And blatant lies
The knives are already sharpened
And the snus is thrown aside

A pillar of democracy
A storm for all fanatics
He turned the people into an army
Ready for a blitzkrieg

The minister was in his rightful place
He was the axis of the country
Thinking of it even while lying in bed

He was everywhere, reaching heavenly heights
He fought to the end, and his work is still ongoing

Arsen Avakov, protect us from
Sorosites, Moskals, pederasts, and Kikes
Bravely defending our fragile worlds of colorful dreams

Azov gained first fame in its liquidation of ‘separatist’ and ‘pro-Russian’ forces in the city of Mariupol in May-June 2014. Many in Azov also played key roles in the escalating violence that brought to victory the euromaidan revolution ‘for liberal and European values’. I wrote here about how C14, a hitlerite group that can also be called Azovite in political orientation (though more directly patronized by the Security Services than Azov, which was closer to the interior ministry) worked with the government to repress political opponents.

Hence, it was natural that Azov and Azovites were always adored by Ukraine’s Sorosites. The Azovites were the muscle with which the Sorosites destroyed their political enemies. These enemies were called ‘pro-Russian’, but what that really represented was social democracy, supported by Ukraine’s industrial working class, itself concentrated in south-eastern Ukraine. This took the shape of an ‘east-west’ split, but the roots were political - almost all Azovites are from east Ukraine, and speak Russian. The Azovite rap group ‘Nord Division’ rap exclusively in Russian:

Why are we so bold?

Kyrylo Budanov supervises us.

He gives us assignments, about what and about whom.

When we read.

If he says not to release a track, we don’t release it.

We’re GUR members, damn it.

We were blasting in Bakhmut

We fucked Kadyrov

….

Doctor Mengele, this is still like a concentration camp.

Yes, I’ve seen the future, and we didn’t lose there.

Nord Division is like blowing up the Kursk submarine.

Historical note: a lot of Russians died there.

So why do I speak of deconstructing the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘nationalist’? Because the ‘liberal’ Sorosites are just as virulently nationalist and bloodthirsty as the ‘nationalists’. Just about every top Ukrainian Sorosite eagerly cheered on the burning alive of dozens of mostly pensioners in the famous May 2 2014 Odessan trade house events. And as I have written here many times, nowadays the Azovites are much more supportive of a ceasefire than Ukraine’s Sorosites. And no wonder, given that it is the Azovites dying on the frontline, while Sorosites tend to split their time between western capitals and Ukraine.

And the nationalists have hardly been able to follow up such a description with a corresponding program. In 2016, Azov came up with a program with the fairly standard national-socialist demand of nationalizing key industries, and even spoke of protecting ‘workers rights’. As I wrote recently, Azov’s leader Biletsky is quite concerned by Ukraine’s economic weakness. But the Sorosites responded with vigorous accusations of leftist deviations, and Azov no longer talks much about nationalization.