Aligned with fascists against Russia. Ukrainian activist cultivates sympathy for Azov, promotes Nazi symbols and war.

Photo (screenshot): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visiting the Azov Brigade with the Wolfsangel flag as background, 2025 (photo: The Presidential Office of Ukraine)

By Susann Witt-Stahl, Unsere Zeit. Sozialistische Wochenzeitung der DKP, February 27, 2026. Translation and notes by Helmut-Harry Loewen.

The “left-wing Ukraine solidarity” movement is pushing hard for more military support for Kyiv’s troops. At a demonstration marking the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, a statement by the ‘Left Youth [‘solid] Dresden’ and other youth associations asserted that Ukrainians “are also defending our security and freedom.” For Ukrainian activist Evelyn Deller, who lives in Germany, left-wing solidarity incorporates an understanding of history that views the Soviet Union as a “colonial state,” one that “deliberately” murdered Jews and other people during the 1932-1933 famine. Furthermore, it is important to “break down prejudices” against the Azov military, says Deller, who is currently touring Germany giving lectures on the “anti-imperialist character and continuity of Ukrainian antifascist self-defence” at the invitation of left-wing initiatives—in Trier in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLS) and in Erfurt with its participation [1].

After the daily newspaper junge Welt published an article which criticized the breach of taboos in terms of how fascism is understood by the RLS, a “democratic socialist” foundation, Deller went even further. The Azov brigade is “a highly specialized elite unit doing important work,” she explained on Instagram. Since its integration into the Ukrainian army, it has been “depoliticized,” Deller claimed. “Even homosexuals can feel comfortable there,” she said, in spite of the fact that the deputy commander of the Azov Brigade recently called for the criminalization of “LGBT propaganda” as a left-wing threat to the family, the “foundation of the nation.” The politics and traditions of the Azov army unit—founded in 2014 by neo-Nazi leader Andriy Biletsky, who remains its commander-in-chief and was promoted to general last year—prove the exact opposite. Their chief ideologist is unwavering in his calls for a “Greater Ukraine for Ukrainians” as a ’Führer’ state, in line with Centuria, currently Ukraine's most militant neo-Nazi organization, which maintains its own company in the Azov brigade. Azov military personnel continue to regard themselves as the historical successors of the Waffen-SS Division “Galicia” from World War II and use insignia of Hitler's German armed forces, such as the Black Sun [Schwarze Sonne], Tyr rune [insignia of the 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division], and the Wolfsangel.

Evelyn Deller appears completely immune to these hard facts: “As long as (even antifascist) Ukrainians no longer view these symbols as representing right-wing extremist ideology, but can also recognize iconography inspired by the Wolfsangel as a defence against Russia, I do not see the Azov Brigade as a problem,” she argues, thus leaving the writing of history to the subjective perceptions of Ukrainian nationalists—a form of postmodern arbitrariness [postmoderner Beliebigkeit] with which the swastika could also be rehabilitated as a Hindu good luck charm whenever it suits one to do so.

The Naturfreunde Thüringen (Thuringia Friends of Nature) are acting with hardly less denial of reality. They want their willingness to open the doors of the Friends of Nature House in Erfurt, named after the antifascist resistance fighter Charlotte Eisenblätter [2], for a lecture by Evelyn Deller on February 20 to be understood as a contribution to “democratic discourse.” They do not wish to see the event, entitled “Why we as leftists must support Ukraine,” as inappropriate “one-sided partisanship,” nor do they want to see it as a violation of the “basic antifascist consensus,” as they make clear in response to an open letter of protest from a member of the Friends of Nature local group Adelante in Berlin. The Thuringian Friends of Nature in Erfurt also apparently have no concerns that, in addition to the RLS, a Hasbara “Antifa” and the anarchist group Radical Aid Force are co-organizers. Radical Aid Force collects funds for the Ukrainian military and disseminates anti-communist hate posts. For the Luxemburg-Liebknecht memorial demonstration in Berlin in 2026, Radical Aid Force published a crossed-out photo with portraits of Lenin and the revolutionaries who were murdered in 1919, accompanied by the battle cry: “Your time is over, Red Krauts!”

Notes

[1] The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation announcement reads: ‘’Sections of the German left are reproducing Russian propaganda and delegitimizing the Ukrainian population's self-defence. The lecture places these distortions in their historical context and analyzes the foundations of Russian imperial ideology in order to raise awareness of disinformation.”

(Organized by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in collaboration with Dissens - Antifascist Group Erfurt.) A German Anarchist Federation poster of an event with Evelyn Deller is entitled, “Why we on the left must support Ukraine – background information and examples of ways to provide direct assistance." A fundraiser “to support Radical Aid Force.”

[2] One of Deller’s presentations was held in Erfurt’s ‘Naturfreundehaus’ (Friends of Nature House), named after Charlotte Eisenblätter (1903–1944), a member of the KPD underground organization led by Robert Uhrig (1903-1944). In February 1942, she was arrested and sent to Ravensbrück, the Nazi concentration camp for women. Opened in 1939, by the time of its liberation by the Red Army in 1945, more than 92,000 women had died at Ravensbrück as the victims of shootings, gassings, hangings, and beatings as well as cold, hunger and medical neglect. On February 15, 1944, Eisenblätter was indicted for high treason and after a farcical show trial was sentenced to death. Along with her comrade from the Uhrig resistance group, Elfriede Tygör, Eisenblätter was executed at Berlin's notorious Plötzensee prison on August 25, 1944. She was honoured for her principled antifascism with a postage stamp issued by the German Democratic Republic in 1959 to raise funds for the preservation of the national memorial at Ravensbrück.

Original article: Susann-Witt-Stahl, Ukraine-Aktivistin will Verständnis für „Asow“, Wolfsangeln und Krieg fördern. Mit Faschisten gegen Russland, Unsere Zeit. Sozialistische Wochenzeitung – Zeitung der DKP, 27. Feb. 2026.