Changes

In October 2018 an unsealed FBI indictment of four American white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) declared that the defendants had trained with the Azov Battalion. The training took place after the white supremacist gang participated in violent riots in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 where a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was killed in a vehicular homicide by a white supremacist. The indictment stated that the Azov Battalion “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations.”<ref>https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/421-robert-rundo-complaint/0f1e76cdeef814133f24/optimized/full.pdf</ref>

In October 2018 an unsealed FBI indictment of four American white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) declared that the defendants had trained with the Azov Battalion. The training took place after the white supremacist gang participated in violent riots in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 where a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was killed in a vehicular homicide by a white supremacist. The indictment stated that the Azov Battalion “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations.”<ref>https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/421-robert-rundo-complaint/0f1e76cdeef814133f24/optimized/full.pdf</ref>

[[Max Blumenthal]] wrote in 2018,<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/17/blowback-us-funded-ukraine-neo-nazis-mentor-us-white-supremacists/</ref> "Azov boasts combat experience, unlimited access to light weapons, and supporters honeycombed throughout the upper echelons of Ukraine’s military and government. No longer just a militia, the organization has developed into a political juggernaut that can overpower Ukraine’s government. Two years ago [2016],<ref>https://korrespondent.net/ukraine/3685301-azovtsy-pryhrozyly-fyzycheskoi-raspravoi-nardepam</ref> the group flexed its muscle on the streets of Kiev, bringing out 10,000 supporters to demand that the government bend to their will or face a coup."  Ivan Katchanovski, a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa and leading investigator of the 2014 [[Odessa Trade Unions House massacre]] where at least 46 [[Russian]]s were burnt alive by Ukrainian Nazis, said “With its military experience and weapons, Azov has the ability to blackmail the government and defend themselves politically against any opposition. They openly say that if the government will not advance an ideology similar to theirs, they will overthrow it.”

[[Max Blumenthal]] wrote in 2018,<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/17/blowback-us-funded-ukraine-neo-nazis-mentor-us-white-supremacists/</ref> "Azov boasts combat experience, unlimited access to light weapons, and supporters honeycombed throughout the upper echelons of Ukraine’s military and government. No longer just a militia, the organization has developed into a political juggernaut that can overpower Ukraine’s government. Two years ago [2016],<ref>https://korrespondent.net/ukraine/3685301-azovtsy-pryhrozyly-fyzycheskoi-raspravoi-nardepam</ref> the group flexed its muscle on the streets of Kiev, bringing out 10,000 supporters to demand that the government bend to their will or face a coup."  Ivan Katchanovski, a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa and leading investigator of the 2014 [[Odessa Trade Unions House massacre]] where at least 46 [[Russian]]s were burnt alive by Ukrainian Nazis, said “With its military experience and weapons, Azov has the ability to blackmail the government and defend themselves politically against any opposition. They openly say that if the government will not advance an ideology similar to theirs, they will overthrow it.”