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Its hard to know if Paul Massaro was oblivious or indifferent to the Nazi origin of the banner he proudly brandished.

The flag, sent to him by the Ukraine Armys Azov Brigade, featured a near-facsimile of the so-called wolfsangel symbol used by the Nazi Waffen SS. It is the units official insignia. But when critics called him out for the selfie he posted on Twitter in February, Massaro a senior official on a congressional commission that promotes human rights and democracy was unapologetic.

Instead, he lauded the heroic last stand that Azov had made against Russia in last years siege of Mariupol, and celebrated the Ukrainian governments decision to formally elevate it to brigade status as new recruits swelled its ranks.

Six days later, Massaro posted a beaming photo of himself with an arm patch honoring Stepan Bandera, a World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist whose forces killed tens of thousands of Jews and Poles in multiple pogroms. Hey, look what Ive got, he wrote above the picture.

Critics erupted but Massaro dug in. He noted that Ukrainians view Bandera, who collaborated with Nazis in his yearslong struggle against the Soviet Union, through the lens of the struggle for Ukrainian independence.

Massaro eventually deleted both posts. But his tweets and the responses exemplify a discomfiting trend: Nearly 18 months into Russias war on Ukraine, the Wests tolerance of far-right actors has reached levels not seen since the 1930s.

In its existential struggle against Russian invaders, Ukraine, a pro-Western democracy, has elevated some problematic heroes with fascist origins. And its allies including Jewish leaders and liberal politicians usually on guard against such forces have largely downplayed or denied this phenomenon.

At least 13 members of Congress, for example, have met with Azov Brigade members and their spouses over the last nine months, despite Congress having banned U.S. funding for the unit since 2018 because of its extremist roots. In June, an Azov delegation met with a leader of Human Rights Watch a watchdog group that in 2015 reported numerous allegations of unlawful detention and the use of torture by the unit.

Azov members have also been welcomed twice at Stanford University, where they were lauded by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and the noted political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who later told the news website SFGate that he viewed them as heroes.

And the Anti-Defamation League, the worlds premier antisemitism watchdog, has softened its assessment of the group since Russias invasion.

Advocates and academics disagree on how much the Azov Brigade and its offshoots have evolved from the groups extremist roots. But even some of the units critics worry that a clash over the group may lend credence to Russian President Putins false narrative that Ukraine itself is a Nazi state and its army a fascist force.

I think we need to speak out, said Abe Foxman, a former leader of the ADL, but make sure it doesnt undermine the nation that is struggling for our system.

Bandera, who was on Massaros armband, is lauded by many Ukrainians for leading a long armed struggle for Ukrainian independence against Poland and the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s, through World War II, and even afterward.

There are streets named after him and monuments to him in public squares; a Bandera bust graces the office of Ukraines military chief. The failure of Bandera, who envisioned Ukraine as an ethnically pure, fascist state, to halt or even condemn the pogroms in which his forces killed an estimated 38,000 Jews and at least 70,000 Poles is mostly denied or evaded by his countrymen.

(The U.S. Army also protected him from Soviet demands for his extradition as the Cold War loomed, considering him too valuable an asset, according to historian Thomas Boghardt of the U.S. Army Center of Military History.)

The Azov Brigade was established by far-right Ukrainian nationalists in 2014 in response to Russias invasion of Crimea. It started as a volunteer civil militia founded by Andriy Biletsky a neo-Nazi who wrote in a 2010 manifesto that Ukraines mission was to lead the White Peoples of the world in the last crusade for their existence; a crusade against the sub-humanity led by the Semites.

Biletsky, who is now 44, left Azov in 2016, when he was elected to Parliament, where he served until 2019. He now leads a right-wing political movement called the Azov Movement, which has its own paramilitary force, known as the National Militia, with an estimated 20,000 volunteers.

Many of the Azov Brigades current senior commanders come from Biletskys original group and remain tied to him politically. But the brigades spokespeople have told news outlets that its fascist roots have withered.

They say the units flag insignia bearing the appearance of a tilted uppercase N with an uppercase I slashing through it is not modeled on the Waffen SS wolfsangel, which remains popular with neo-Nazis today; it stands instead for the National Idea meaning Ukrainian nationalism though Ukraine uses a cyrillic alphabet, which does not include the letter N.

(In 2015, the unit dropped from its logos background a black sun symbol known as the sonnenrad that was also used by the Nazis.)

Today, the brigade itself has an estimated 2,500 active soldiers, with affiliated units that, taken together, have about 5,000.

This is a tiny fraction of Ukraines 1.3 million active fighters, reservists, and police and paramilitary forces. But Azovs ferocity in battle has won it fame and recognition far beyond its numbers. During the three-month siege in the eastern city of Mariupol, dubbed A New Masada by The Wall Street Journal, they were the main fighters who dug in at an abandoned steel mill with little food or water. Several hundred were taken prisoners of war.

This is their political strategy to be the best fighting force they can and to get the populace to associate them with military heroism, said Daniel Trombly, a doctoral candidate at the George Washington University researching radical movements and paramilitarism. Its done quite a lot for their reputation, even if people like them despite their ideology instead of because of it.

But Andreas Umland, a Kyiv-based analyst with the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, said its not a political strategy at all.

Theyre not an ideological phenomenon anymore, he argued, noting that Azov is now fighting under the general military command and has many new recruits who are not from Biletskys core group.

Two of the leading U.S. groups fighting antisemitism the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the ADL are also at loggerheads in their views of the Azov Brigade and the lionization of Bandera.

Efraim Zuroff, who coordinates Nazi war crimes research at the Wiesenthal Center, criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to call out the brigades continued use of a Nazi-inspired insignia and ongoing ties to right-wing radicals.

I can appreciate that he wants to keep these men fighting theyre good fighters, Zuroff said. But you must put your foot down. If you want to be a democracy, you dont walk around with Nazi symbols.

Embracing the Azov Brigade and Bandera only feeds Putins lies that Ukraine is a Nazi country, Zuroff added. Its not a Nazi country. Its a country that glorifies murderous Nazi collaborators, though.

Thats just the kind of narrative the ADL is determined to avoid.

We need to keep priorities straight, said Andrew Srulevitch, the groups director for European affairs. We are not going to contribute to Russian propaganda that is aimed at lowering American political support for Ukraine just because we see a few guys with worrying arm patches.

The actual threat posed by Ukraines far right, he said, was negligible.

The ADLs assessment of Azov has undergone a profound shift since the start of the current war in Ukraine.

Back in 2019, the group described the Azov Battalion in a report as a Ukrainian extremist group and militia that has ties to neo-Nazis in Ukraine as well as white supremacists worldwide.

A week after Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ADL described Azov as the Ukrainian national guard unit with explicit neo-Nazi ties.

But by November, the ADL told a reporter for a pro-Russian news outlet called Grayzone that its Center on Extremism does not see the Azov Regime as the far-right group it once was.

Srulevitch said the Center on Extremisms most recent assessment is that it is impossible to say how many extremists might still remain within the Azov unit, but it would certainly be far fewer than it had in the past.

The ADLs equivocal stance goes beyond Azov. In a June New York Times article about some Ukrainian soldiers use of Nazi-derived symbols on their uniforms, an ADL spokesperson did not express outrage.

Instead, discussing one photo the article highlighted a soldier with a skull and crossbones patch known as the Totenkopf, which was famously adopted by the Nazi SS he said he could not make an inference about the wearer. The soldiers specific Totenkopf, said the spokesperson, appeared to be merchandise of a British neo-folk band called Death in June.

The bands name memorializes a June 1934 event known as The Night of the Long Knives, in which Hitler executed leaders of the Nazi party who helped bring him to power. Many of its songs contain Nazi references; a 1995 album was titled Rose Clouds of Holocaust.

When I asked Mark Pitcavage, a senior ADL researcher, about the band, he told me that its members deny that they have extremist leanings.

Some comments from band members suggest they may have right-wing sympathies, he said. But we recognize that not all Death in June fans are white supremacists.

Srulevitch, the ADLs European affairs director, said that regardless of some Ukrainians use of Nazi symbols and admiration for the Azov Brigade and Bandera, he is not worried about the country being taken over by extremists or antisemites.

In the 2019 election that made Zelenskyy the countrys first Jewish president, he noted, Ukraines far-right bloc won about 2% of the vote. In the ADLs 2023 global survey regarding Jew-hatred, 29% of Ukraines population expressed antisemitic attitudes above the European average of 22% and Russias 26%, but below Polands 35%.

So we know that in Ukrainian society far-right extremism is negligible, Srulevitch said. Its fair to assume something similar in the military. Maybe its something more there. But its not a serious issue.

Foxman, who ran the ADL for 27 years ending in 2015, called Srulevitchs characterization sophistry.

Twenty-nine percent is very serious thats almost one-third of the country, he said. The priority is to maintain Ukraine as a free country, but not to close our eyes to history, One should not negate the other.

If some Jewish leaders are grappling openly with the tension between their support of Ukraine in the war and their concerns over the ideology of some of the soldiers fighting it, U.S. government officials seem to have adopted a strategy of silence.

I had hoped to talk about this to Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt, the Holocaust historian who President Joe Biden appointed last summer as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. Her office invited me to submit questions via email, which I did on June 14, but then failed to respond despite multiple follow-up emails and phone calls.

A spokesperson for the Helsinki Commission, the congressional human rights watchdog that employs Massaro the man who posted selfies with the Azov flag and Bandera armband did not return multiple phone messages.

Sue Walitsky, a spokesperson for the Democratic co-chair of the commission, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, said that Massaro, a senior policy adviser, has been spoken to about the inappropriate nature of his posts and removed the tweet with the arm patch after one such discussion.

Massaro declined to speak on the record, citing restrictions on public statements by Helsinki staffers. On Twitter, Massaro said he had decided to delete the Bandera post at the request of a good Polish friend.

Senator Cardin, in response to a query about Azov and Bandera, issued a generic statement saying: The glorification and promotion of symbols related to Nazism are always wrong, divisive and must be denounced.

Cardins Republican co-chair, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina one of the House members who met last month with the Azov delegation did not respond to multiple emails.

Several prominent public intellectuals marshaling support for Ukraine also declined my requests to discuss this issue, including McFaul, the former ambassador who now runs an international studies program at Stanford.

One who did respond was Leon Wieseltier, who co-convened a 2014 conference of writers in Kyiv to curse Putin in six or seven languages, as he put it.

Weve been here before, Wieseltier said. When American Jews supported anti-Communist movements in Eastern Europe, we knew full well that the people for whose freedom we were advocating had very nasty records.

We did that for philosophical and practical reasons, he continued. Because Jews who believe in freedom believe in universal freedom, those who believe in democracy believe in universal democracy.

Wieseltier noted that in 1940s Poland, Ukrainians murdered my own family members.

I believe antisemitism should be condemned loudly and immediately wherever it appears, he said. I dont believe in thinking pragmatically about that.

Wieseltier said that Lipstadt, in particular, should be speaking out, noting that she was hired to condemn antisemitism.

But Ira Forman, President Barack Obamas antisemitism envoy, said its not always that simple. Im a big human rights advocate, but it will never be 100% about human rights, he told me in an interview.

Working under the multiple, sometimes conflicting priorities that characterize any administration, Forman found himself asking, What are the most winnable and most important fights?

He said one key criterion was the danger posed to Jews in the country. And he had found that Ukraines Jews didnt see the countrys ultra-right as the ones committing most incidents of antisemitism; instead they believed it came from Russians or Russian sympathizers trying to pin a fascist label on the Ukrainian government.

Indeed, several experts who follow Ukraines ultra-nationalist right closely told me something I found surprising: Their activists generally do not target Jews.

All the specialists I consult say that there is no evidence of antisemitism among Ukrainian neo-Nazis, said David Fishman, a professor of Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary who visits the region frequently.

Its kind of a youth culture, he explained. It stresses aggression, hatred and violence. Thats what the Nazi symbols mean to them. But who are the objects of all that? This is flexible, pliable and has metamorphosed.

The top targets today, he said, are Russians, including ethnic Russians inside Ukraine whose national loyalty may be in question. After that come Africans and Roma.

Still, the popularity of Ukraines cause and the Azov Brigades own formidable PR operations are bringing the units foreboding, Nazi-evoking symbols into the mainstream under a new, flattering spotlight.

The units version of the wolfsangel insignia, for example, was projected on a screen behind McFaul, the former U.S. envoy to Moscow, when he welcomed members of the Azov Brigade to Stanford University in September.

A few weeks later in New Jersey, Ukrainian American children at a social gathering stared admiringly up at a visiting Azov delegation member, his yellow arm patch with the unsettling symbol on prominent display.

And in November, the Azov Brigades talented press director, Dmytro Kozatsky, appeared on Andrea Mitchells MSNBC show alongside Ukraines ambassador to Washington and Carol Guzy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer. The network showed Kozatskys stunning photos from inside the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol during Russias siege, as well as Guzys from wartime Kyiv.

I wanted to take this picture as a symbol of this victory of good over evil, Kozatsky told Mitchell, referring to an image of a thin beam of sunlight illuminating an Azov fighter inside the darkened plant, now gracing the cover of Guzys new Ukraine photo collection.

Mitchell made no mention of the photos on Kozatskys Twitter feed: of him in a T-shirt bearing the insignia of a notorious Waffen SS unit in May 2018; of a lasagna he baked with a swastika etched intoit in March 2020, or of him wearing a shirt emblazoned with the code numbers 1488, which is listed in the ADLs catalog of white supremacist hate symbols.

Nor did she ask Kozatsky why he had liked a tweet showing Ukrainian graffiti saying Death to Yids with an SS symbol in March 2020.

These tweets were removed before Kozataskys MSNBC appearance, but remain archived. Eleven days later, a protester confronted Kozatsky about the tweets at the DOCNYC film festival in Manhattan, where he was promoting a documentary in which he stars that was made by an Israeli-American. After that protest went online, Kozatsky apologized on Twitter, describing his earlier tweets as Ukrainian humor meant as a mockery of Russian propaganda about so-called Nazism in Ukraine.

In no way would I ever support, and do not support, the terrible actions of the Third Reich and Hitler, he wrote. Especially when nowadays we are fighting the direct successor of Nazism in the world the Russian Federation.

During our discussion, Srulevitch, the ADL official who downplays the far-right threat in Ukraine, made a stirring prediction: This war, terrible as it is, will transform the frightening phenomenon of Ukrainians adulating Bandera, ethnic mass murders and all.

Ukraine now has many heroes who fought Russia but didnt kill Jews President Zelenskyy first and foremost, he said. Bandera will be supplanted by the heroes of this war.

Perhaps. But whether those heroes should all be acclaimed as champions of democracy in Ukraine and in the United States remains a subject of significant debate.

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ANALYSIS: Why has the West embraced Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov ... - The Jewish News of Northern California

As he condemned the mutiny of Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in late June, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his justification for the invasion of Ukraine. According to Putin, Russia had to eliminate the dire threat of a hostile Ukraine armed by the West and guided by a fascist ideology nurtured by the United States. Russia was fighting fiercely for its future, repelling the aggression of neo-Nazis and their masters. In late July, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov affirmed that Russia would never abandon the supposed goal of eliminating the Western-backed neo-Nazi danger.

The Kremlin has long used the antifascist struggle of the Great Patriotic War, as Russians call World War II, as a framework to explain and justify its domestic and foreign policies. The application of this narrative to the war in Ukraine is now buckling under pressure. As he launched his short-lived revolt, Prigozhin maintained in a posted video that Russias corrupt military leadership had deceived Putin into believing that NATO and Ukraine were preparing to attack Russia: The invasion of Ukraine wasnt needed to safeguard Russia from a manufactured neo-Nazi threat. About a month later, on July 20, CIA Director William Burns observed that Prigozhins video, which was widely viewed in Russia, was the most scathing indictment of Putins rationale for war that I have heard from a Russian or a non-Russian.

Prigozhins claim that the military leadership manipulated the justification for war further undermines popular and elite belief in an imminent neo-Nazi threat from Ukraine managed by the United States. While a majority of respondents in Russian surveys voice support for the Russian military in Ukraine, observers suggest this stance may often reflect dissembling or weakly held rationalizations. In a recent survey, a majority of respondents supported the war (43 percent indicated strong support). But 41 percent also believed the invasion had created more harm than benefit for Russia. Among the 38 percent who perceived more benefit than harm, only 9 percent thought the value of the special military operation was in its protection against fascism and Nazism, and even fewer respondents (3 percent) believed the war had rallied the support of society.

Nevertheless, Putin remains committed to the weaponization of historical memory against the West and Ukraine. This discursive approach builds on Putins pre-invasion charges of antisemitism and genocide against Russias foreign critics, condemning the behavior of Poles, Ukrainians, and other regional actors during World War II for assisting in the Holocaust. Unlike the Soviet regime, Putins rendition of the Great Patriotic War now openly commemorates the Red Armys role in ending the Nazi genocide against the Jews.

This conceptual pivot marked an escalation in Russias response to the long-standing accusations by governments and groups in Eastern Europe that Soviet behavior during this period was itself genocidal. Just as narratives of victimization in Eastern Europe were often linked to the efforts of post-communist elites at state- and nation-building that cast the Soviet Union as a malevolent other, the Kremlin has now reinforced its opposing account. For Putin, Russians and Jews were both victims of genocide in World War II. This revised narrative encouraged the Kremlin to falsely identify Ukraines policies toward Russian speakers in the Donbas region as genocide and the invasion of 2022 as a necessary response. Putin has used this claim of genocide, which lacks any supporting evidence (civilian casualties in Donbas remained relatively low for the period from 2015 to 2022), to establish another link between the Great Patriotic War, the Holocaust, and the most recent invasion.

Given the asserted need to de-Nazify Ukraine, Putin views the support of Russias Jews as essential. Yet prominent Russian Jews have criticized the Kremlins often ham-fisted attempts to politicize the memory of the Holocaust or vilify Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a Jew who supports neo-Nazis. In May 2022, Lavrov caused a furor when he compared Zelensky to Hitler, who had Jewish blood. Lavrov observed that wise Jews understood that the worst antisemites are found among Jews themselves.

Berel Lazar, Russias chief rabbi and a leader of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), had withheld support for the invasion but had also refrained from direct criticism.

He now called on Lavrov to retract the comments that Jews were essentially responsible for the Holocaust and the associated accusation that Zelensky leads a neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine that threatens Russia. Rabbi Alexander Boroda, the president of FEOR, implored all sides in the conflict to stop exploiting the tragic events of the Holocaust and World War II for political gain.

The Israeli government criticized Lavrovs lies, and Putin eventually apologized to Israels prime minister. Yet Lavrov persisted, later stating that the West had instigated the current war to accomplish a final solution to the Russian question, thus equating Western support for Ukraine with the evils of Nazi Germany.

The unwillingness of Jewish leaders in Russia to support the war, despite pressure from the Kremlin, has exposed the community to retaliation, including constraints on the activities of the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency, the organization that facilitates the immigration of Jews to Israel. Another possible example of retaliation is the article by Aleksey Pavlov, the former assistant secretary of Russias Security Council. Pavlov examined the purported spread of neo-paganism and cults in Ukraine, tracing the phenomenon to Ukrainian ultra-nationalists aligned with Nazi Germany and later to the malicious policies of the United States. One of the cults identified by Pavlov is the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, the predominantly Jewish organization in both Ukraine and Russia. According to Pavlov, these groups must undergo de-Satanization.

Lazar criticized Pavlovs article as vulgar antisemitism. An apology soon came from Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Security Council, and Pavlov was removed from his position. But Russian Jews worry they may be exposed to further censure as Putin hardens his condemnation of an anti-Russian collective West. While pre-invasion surveys indicate that most Russians view Jews with respect and tolerance, Russians also perceive Jews as the group most closely associated with the West. Putin has publicly compared the West to Nazi Germany and has identified Russian supporters of Western values and policies as members of a fifth column who are scum and traitors. Such language may stimulate and reinforce Soviet-era antisemitism, which has survived in segments of Russias security services and other institutions, including the Russian Orthodox Church.

In this fraught environment, the leadership of the Jewish community in Russia attempts to maintain a careful balancing act.

In an address on June 16, Putin returned to the question of why the Ukrainian state was a neo-Nazi entity even though Zelensky is Jewish. According to Putin, his many Jewish friends believe that Zelensky is not a Jew but a disgrace to the Jewish people. Neo-Nazis, followers of Hitler, have been raised on pedestals as todays heroes in Ukraine. One and a half million [Jews] were killed in Ukraine, and primarily at the hands of [Stepan] Bandera [the Ukrainian nationalist leader] followers. After screening historical footage of WWII atrocities, Putin told the audience: This is Bandera and his minions. These are the people who today are the heroes of Ukraine. How can you not fight this?

For years before the 2022 invasion, Russian propaganda focused on Bandera and the paramilitary units (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA) aligned with his faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). Documentary evidence points to the role of members of Banderas organization in the widespread violent repression of Jews, Poles, and other ethno-cultural groups during World War II. While Banderas direct culpability is still debated by scholars, his xenophobia and extremist ideology enabled fellow leaders and supporters to justify their atrocities.

The popularity of Bandera has surged in Ukraine even though the ultra-nationalist organizations associated with his memory have declined since their peak in 2012, when Svoboda, the far-right party, gained 10 percent of the vote in national parliamentary elections. Svobodas short-lived electoral strength was due more to the appeal of its anti-Russian nationalism and populism than its far-right ideology, which the party gradually moderated in ensuing years. Nevertheless, the Kremlin has used Svoboda and paramilitary groups like the Right Sector coalition and the Azov movement to grossly exaggerate the political strength of the far right in Ukraine today.

In charging Kyiv with neo-fascism, the Kremlin has also denounced Ukraines often anti-Russian cultural and memory policies. In support of nation- and state-building, post-independence Ukraine has increasingly celebrated Bandera as a leader of Ukraines struggle for national sovereignty. More broadly, Kyiv has moved to replace the Soviet master narrative of Ukrainian history with a national story of its own, which emphasizes Ukraines victimization by a predatory Russia. In its account of World War II, the Ukrainian government often whitewashed the repressions of the OUN-UPA, particularly against Poles and Jews. This approach elicited harsh criticism from Russia, but also from Israel, Poland, Germany, the EU, and international Jewish communities. It also alienated much of the population in Ukraines Russophone east and south.

Nevertheless, Russias aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and particularly in 2022 underscored for many Ukrainians Banderas relevance as a nationalist. In 2014, more than 70 percent of respondents in Ukraines west saw Bandera in a positive light, while similar percentages in Ukraines Russophone south and east held a negative view of the controversial figure. The strong reaction of Ukrainian society to the Russian invasion of 2022 dramatically narrowed these regional differences: Most Ukrainians now express positive attitudes about Bandera: from 92 percent in the west to 73 percent in the east.

Although the Kremlin contends that such opinions are proof that Ukraine is in thrall to a neo-Nazi ideology supported by the United States, respondents in the same survey believe the OUN and its armed detachments were freedom fighters who resisted both Nazi and Soviet threats to Ukrainian independence. A daunting obstacle to Putins neo-Nazi narrative is that while Ukraine honors individuals from its pastwho were xenophobic, the Ukrainian state and the great majority of contemporary Ukrainiansembraceacivic identitythat the Russian invasion has largelystrengthened.

Although Ukraines selective memory remains a source of tension with Poland, Israel, Germany, and other external actors and groups, the solidarity generated by the Russian invasion has for now worked to moderate disagreements over the past. Zelensky himself has moved away from, if slowly, Ukraines exculpatory stance toward the OUN and UPA. This careful shift likely reflects his, and Ukraines, general embrace of EU values as well as the desire for long-term security cooperation with Poland and NATO as a whole.

The low incidence of public expressions of antisemitism in Ukraine is also important. Despite an alarming spike in antisemitic violence and vandalism during the Maidan Revolution in 2014, a 2016 regional survey found that 95 percent of Ukrainian respondents accept Jews as citizens, the highest percentage among post-Soviet and post-communist countries (for Russia, the number was 86 percent). These attitudes, which counter major assumptions of Putins narrative, should, in time, broadly support more open dialogue in Ukraine about World War II.

Putins struggle to craft a coherent story that binds the invasion of Ukraine to the memory and conceptual framework of the Great Patriotic War is one of his biggest challenges. There is a lack of credible evidencefor the simple reason that it isnt truethat Ukraine constitutes a neo-Nazi threat resembling the existential struggle of the Great Patriotic War, the only historical event able to stimulate intense national pride among Russians.

Theories of social conflict suggest that a threat can unite a group, including a society, but only if the group as a whole perceives the threat as authentic, powerful, and immediate. In Russia, the war against Ukraine doesnt have that saliencein part because Putins narrative is simply too detached from reality.

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Putin's Justification for War Is Unraveling Foreign Policy - Foreign Policy

In the latest edition of infighting occurring in the worst corners of the internet, influential neo-Nazi James Mason is going to war with a satanic sect of Nazis who published his book.

Mason, arguably the grandfather of the neo-Nazi accelerationist movement, is particularly at odds with a small satanic cell of the Order of Nine Angles. The Order of Nine Angles, or O9A is a decentralized neo-Nazi Satanic group connected to both acts of violence and horrific pedophilia. Despite how obtuse the O9A is, they have an outsized influence on the far-right.

The cell in particular is a splinter group from a splinter group of the infamous neo-Nazi terror organization Atomwaffen. According to propaganda photos published by this specific cell, they dont seem to be much larger than three people.

Mason, 71, is best known for a collection of his writings in which he argues for militant action and that the collapse of Western civilization is necessary for the survival of the white race. Written in the 1980s, Masons work found a new life over the last decade, becoming massively influential in the far-right, particularly those in the militant accelerationist milieuwhich believes they must hasten the fall of society so they can build a white ethnostate from the asheslike Atomwaffen and The Base. Earlier this year, the small satanic neo-Nazi cell was able to pull together enough money to publish a new copy of Masons influential terrorist manifestowhich they called the 666 edition.

The latest edition, which VICE News has reviewed, has an introduction section where the editor claims to have gotten to personally know Mason and actually helped publish the previous edition. It essentially states Mason has grown meeker than the ideas presented in his work and denounces him.

After becoming aware of the 666 publication, Mason made a video called Satanic Expose, where he accused the group of being a front for the FBI (an influential member of the O9A was previously proven to be a federal informant.) The main piece of evidence he presents for his claim is essentially that the 666 Edition was physically too well-made for a neo-Nazi publication.

We here call it the 'federal edition' because of its high quality, hardback, coded stock, color throughout... most impressive! Not only that, I initially heard this was (a) $100 volume, and I can believe it, but I'm told now they're giving it away, he says in the video. Most odd, who has that kind of money? That's why we call it the federal edition. The feds do good work.

In response to the video, the O9A adherents made a blog post where they called him the high priest of deceleration James don't do it Mason and complained he was all talk, no terror crimes. This insult, while coming from a group that appears to be pretty small, got to Mason so much that he essentially suggested to his followers they may as well commit murder..

Earlier this week Mason released a video he and his team entitled Accelerate! where he addresses the satanic Nazis insults. In it, Mason takes umbrage with the small sect of satanic neo-Naizs and others who have been calling him soft. For over 12 minutes, Mason sits in front of his mantle and rants about these groups.

At one point Mason begins telling the story of his first arrest, which he says came in 1969 in Silver Spring, Maryland after he and his fellow Nazis were caught postering a Jewish store. He said that he got off lightly but times have changed and his followers that do similar actions will likely catch a hate crime charge.

Today, I think most will know what would happen in a case such as this. A federal hate crime, your life turned upside down, he says in the video. Now, this sort of activity is exactly what these types who are calling me a decelerationist are advocating. No,' they say 'no need to go out and kill anyone, just play these stupid and silly games.' I say that if you choose death or prison, then you might as well go all the way with it.

Josh Fisher-Birch, an analyst with the Counter Extremism Project, told VICE News that this goes along with Masons past statements where he accuses those arguing for low level crime of being feds repeatedly and winks at his audience by saying that if one is going to commit an illegal act and risk prison or death, it should count and be done in secret.

It suggests that Mason does not want to be seen as someone who would never advocate violence in any circumstance, said Fisher-Birch. It gives Mason an out to avoid responsibility and tries to confer all agency on the hypothetical perpetrator. Mason is, of course, speaking to an audience where certain members do certainly believe in the use of violence.

For some reason, cuckoo clocks go off at random intervals and interrupt him throughout, making the video of a septuagenarian neo-Nazi ideologue encouraging his followers to kill feel even more bizarre than it already is.

The Empire Never Ended, a podcast that chronicles the ins and outs of the extreme right, recently did an episode on the satanic cell where they tracked its growth. The cell in particular splintered off from the National Socialist Order, a group which itself was formed when Atomwaffen disbanded. They splintered off essentially over adherence to the O9A.

In the fall of last year, when a beef with James Mason ballooned into yet another realization that National Socialist Order was still full of Nazi Satanists, a big chunk of them, including at least one founding member according to Mason, went off to make the (neo-Nazi cell) and build a community of true evil and all that nonsense, said Fritz McAlinden, one of the show's hosts.

McAlinden added he can't think of a dumber and more edge-lordy group. In regards to the statements Mason made, McAlinden said, the elder neo-Nazi is singing the same old song.

He's very weaselly about this, he said. This is the classic thing where they all want to be the most evil but none of them want to get in trouble.

Neo-Nazis and other members of far-right groups tearing themselves apart are nothing new. If you track the movement over decades youll see countless examples of bigots going after bigots. Just recently the neo-Nazi Active Clubs had a nationwide online tizzy with the Proud Boys, a far-right street fighting group because a few members were pushed around in Oregon.

Its something that holds true no matter how bizarre or influential the groups become. They can be an influential neo-Nazi who has inspired murders, or a weird little racist occult group, but they cant resist the siren song of a flame war.

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The Grandfather of Modern Neo-Nazism Is Fighting With Satanic ... - VICE

Rev. Kevin Riggs, pastor of Franklin Community Church. (Photo: John Partipilo)

This story is part second in weeklong a series called A darker shade of red.

Part of the far right in the U.S. is the Christian far right. According to Philip Gorski, chair of Yale Universitys sociology department political sociology and social movements as well as religion are areas of interest for him the Christian far right in the U.S. has evolved over hundreds of years. Its basic principles, though, date back to the countrys birth, as do its two categories or groups: God and country and God over country.

God and country people believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are directly or indirectly inspired by the Christian Bible, Gorski explains. They believe that America is especially blessed by God, its been given a special mission in history. And they worry that all these blessings and all that power will be taken away if it doesnt remain a Christian nation. And, for most of these people, the term Christian kind of implies white.

Part one: A darker shade of red

Even further to their right is what I would call the God over country people, Gorski adds. And these are people who dont believe that America is a Christian nation or that it ever was, but theyre determined to make sure that it becomes one, and that usually involves destroying the American government and replacing it with some form of Christian government and Christian law.

Gorski says the U.S. Christian far right has grown over the last 15 or 20 years. One reason, he says, is that theres been an erosion of authority from older Christian leaders.

I think there are a lot of conservative white Christians out there whove learned a lot more of their theology quote-unquote from Rush Limbaugh a former Republican media personality who Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom before dying in 2021 at 70 years old and Tucker Carlson, than from Jerry Falwell or Billy Graham.

The U.S. Christian far right has grown a lot since the start of Obamas presidency, Gorski says, both in terms of numbers and power, but especially in power. When it comes to sheer size, a conservative guess by Gorski puts the percentage of current U.S. Republican voters who are either God and country or God over country Christian far right at 25 or 30 percent. In terms of power, he says the U.S. Christian far right has grown so much that its among the loudest voices in the GOP.

God and country people believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are directly or indirectly inspired by the Christian Bible. They believe that America is especially blessed by God, its been given a special mission in history. And they worry that all these blessings and all that power will be taken away if it doesnt remain a Christian nation. And, for most of these people, the term Christian kind of implies white.

Philip Gorski, Yale University

Why has the Christian far right grown in the country? Gorski credits social media for being, probably, the biggest reason: social media has let once-small fringe groups interact with each other as well as work on influencing mainstream opinion.

Growth is one thing. Evolution is another. The latter has happened, too, Gorski posits. Theres a new development that Gorski mentions: The U.S. Christian far right is becoming authoritarian. He says it wasnt like that 10 or 20 years ago.

Based on the current trends when Gorski was interviewed in 2022 for this story, Gorski thought that the Christian far right would get even more powerful in the Republican party over the next two to four years so 2024 to 2026. Beyond that window, he said it was harder to predict what will happen. Thats because people are variable; what they do will impact what happens.

When it comes to Middle Tennessee, Rev. Kevin Riggs runs down a list of examples showing the regions power in Christianity. Its home to several denominational headquarters. Williamson County houses the majority of the Christian music industry. There are a number of Christian publishing houses in the Middle Tennessee area. And a lot of the executives who work in Christian publishing live in Williamson County.

Almost anything that gets put out in the quote Christian world and Christian culture is going to come through Middle Tennessee before it goes out to the world, and a lot of that is going to come through Williamson County, Riggs says.

Riggs is 57 years old. For the past 33, he has been a pastor at Franklin Community Church. Hes currently a senior pastor there. When RIggs talks, you hear a Southern drawl. Originally from Nashville, the fourth-generation ordained minister has lived in Franklin for more than three decades.

Theres more on his list. Middle Tennessee has so-called Christian celebrities. And it has organizations that have large preaching circuits. Plus, it has Christian institutions of higher education.

Middle Tennessees power, still, doesnt end there. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research tracks the number of megachurches in the U.S. The institute classifies a church as a megachurch if it has an average weekly attendance of at least 2,000 people. A February 2022 analysis by the Lookout for this story of the institutes data showed Tennessee had 67 megachurches, placing the state fifth in the U.S. But on a per-capita basis, using data from both the institute and the U.S. Census Bureaus 2020 census population data, Tennessee had the most.

Christianity and politics are big in Williamson County. Riggs says even if you want to be elected for the lowly and, in Williamson County, make-believe office of dogcatcher, you need to go church, even if its just every so often. And, you need to make sure people know that you go.

One thing Riggs wants to make clear: Not every Christian is far-right. But, he contends, the Christian far right is definitely present.

You hear the South oftentimes referred to as the buckle of the Bible Belt sometimes thats Tennessee, sometimes thats Arkansas but Im convinced that Middle Tennessee, and Williamson County, in particular, is the buckle of Christian nationalism, Riggs says, referring to Christian far-right extremism.

Riggs doesnt know if the non-violent end of the far-right spectrum makes up the majority or the minority in Williamson Countys Christian community. Its too close to tell.

Almost anything that gets put out in the quote Christian world and Christian culture is going to come through Middle Tennessee before it goes out to the world, and a lot of that is going to come through Williamson County.

Rev. Kevin Riggs, pastor of Franklin Community Church

In terms of power in Williamson County, Riggs says calling the Christian far right a vocal minority doesnt truly represent how much muscle it actually has. Also, its become more vocal in recent years.

Extremism hits close to home for Riggs. He used to have Christian far-right views.

I know what Im talking about. I know how Evangelicals think. I know how that far right thinks, Riggs says. He lets out a chuckle. You know, I dont need to read it in a survey. I mean, I know.

If Trump wins the presidency in 2024, Riggs thinks the situation in Williamson County will get worse. There will be more divisiveness. The Christian far right will be even bolder.

Elizabeth Madeira decided to run for local office in the 2020 election cycle. Before eventually losing her bid for the Tennessee House of Representatives 63rd district a seat held at the time by now-indicted former state House Speaker Glen Casada Madeira encountered the far right numerous times. The most memorable experience came about six to eight weeks prior to election day. Thats when she got a phone call. The caller had a question: Was Madeira running as a Democrat? Yes, she answered.

I did not get another word in edgewise because she went on a long ramble about how Democrats support killing babies, pedophilia, support killing police officers it was a long, very angry tirade, in which she disparaged the college that I attended, Madeira remembers, before pointing out that her alma mater is a Christian college. And then she said that her daughter attends that college, and, now, she thinks she might have to take that daughter out of college because she was gonna turn into a Democrat like me.

A little later in the conversation about that phone call, Madeira adds: It was basically a litany of QAnon conspiracy theories for at least five minutes, and then she hung up on me.

On Jan. 6, 2021 nearly two months after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election an event called the Save America March was scheduled. Trump, just 14 days away from the end of his presidential term, was the headliner.

The day was overcast. Cold, too. People were bundled up; some had draped Trump-themed flags over themselves. Red Make America Great Again hats were seen here and there. Same with signs. SAVE AMERICA read some. Another: STAND WITH TRUMP. One woman held a yellow, handmade sign that read TRUMP WON in all-capital letters.

Standing at the lectern, with American flags and the White House behind him, Trump falsely told the crowd the election was being stolen from him. Moments later, he added he would never concede and that we will stop the steal.

Lets walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, he instructed later in his speech.

He never went.

A torrent of pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol that day. A melee ensued. It lasted for hours. There were countless physical and psychological injuries. People died that day; afterward, too.

More than 725 people had been arrested and charged in connection to the insurrection, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a day before the insurrections one-year anniversary. Ronald Colton McAbee was one of them. McAbee was a Williamson County Sheriffs Office employee on the day of the insurrection, according to a legal filing obtained by the Lookout. McAbee was charged with one count of Inflicting Bodily Injury on Certain Officers or Employees and Aiding and Abetting; one count of Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers or Employees; two counts of Obstruction of Law Enforcement During Civil Disorder; one count of Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon; one count of Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in any Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon; one count of Engaging in Physical Violence any Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon and one count of Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct on Capitol Grounds, as laid out in the legal filing.

Also in the legal filing is visual evidence of McAbee wearing a red Make America Great Again hat and a black tactical vest during the insurrection. On his tactical vest there was a patch on the left breast that read SHERIFF in all-capital letters and a patch with the logo of the far-right militia group the Three Percenters on the right breast.

There were 733 far-right hate groups in the U.S. in 2021, according to the human-rights non-profit organization the Southern Poverty Law Center. That was the smallest annual number of U.S. hate groups that the SPLC tracked since it recorded 705 in 2002.

In Tennessee, the SPLC tracked 28 hate groups in 2021. These consisted of two anti-LGBTQ groups, three white-nationalist, four neo-Nazi, nine general hate, one antisemitic, four Ku Klux Klan, two anti-Muslim, one Christian identity, one neo-Confederate and one racist skinhead. Eleven of Tennessees 28 far-right hate groups in 2021 were statewide organizations. Of the remaining 17, six were in Middle Tennessee; none were in Williamson County.

When it comes to individual incidents of extremism or antisemitism, the anti-hate non-governmental and non-profit organization the Anti-Defamation League has data going back to 2002. In 2021, there were 5,373 incidents in the U.S. recorded by the ADL. That came on the heels of 6,978 in 2020 and 4,732 in 2019.

Tennessee had 38 incidents in 2021, per the ADL. Of the 38, one was a terrorist plot and attack, five were white-supremacist events, 30 were white-supremacist propaganda and eight were antisemitic incidents. Nine of the 38 happened in Middle Tennessee. Two were in Williamson County both in Franklin: one white-supremacist propaganda, one antisemitic.

Jared Holt of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, thinks the U.S. far right became emboldened in 2021 following the Capitol insurrection. A motivating factor, in Holts eyes, for the far right is the belief that institutions failed Trump. And helping fuel extremist growth, Holt contends, is right-wing media in the U.S., which has succumbed to conspiratorialism.

To an extent, in Holts opinion, people with far-right views in the U.S. have always been involved in local politics. One part of the countrys far right that comes to his mind is militias: Theyve tried to get people on city councils or curry favor from local sheriffs.

Now, though, Holt notes, there are people with far-right ideologies that have bought into the conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that, on the national level, Republicans arent fighting hard enough for Trump. These people are trying to step up locally and fill the void that they feel exists.

Madeira says 2021 was crazy in Williamson County. It was divisive. Tense.

Thats when she started hearing the term political refugee in her community. People who had moved away from more-Democratic states and had come to the more-Republican Tennessee were using it.

Life in Williamson County is a paradox, Madeira says. On one hand, based on her involvement in the community, Madeira thinks that people with far-right ideology are the minority. However, she contends, theyre making the most noise and have become a collective, creating controversy and division. On the other hand, Williamson County has been one of the most-vaccinated counties in Tennessee against COVID-19.

At the state level in Tennessee, Madeira feels the far-right has taken over the Republican party, that extremist ideology has become mainstream.

Says Madeira: I feel like what is happening in Tennessee is dangerous to Tennessee.

Look for part three in our series A darker shade of red tomorrow.

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Elon Musk made his most brazen overture to white nationalists yet on Monday, tweeting about the white genocide conspiracy theory in South Africa.

In response to a video of South Africas Economic Freedom Fighters party posted by right-wing influencer and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson, Musk tweeted, They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa. The video shows members of the party singing a struggle song that features the lyrics shoot to kill, kill the Boer, kill the farmer. A court ruled last August that the song was not hate speech, and that the lyrics were not meant to be taken literally.

Almost immediately, white nationalists praised Musk for taking up their cause:

Elon Musk bringing attention to White Genocide, white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes wrote on Telegram, accompanied by an emoji of an excited Pepe.

Patrick Casey, founder of the neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa, tweeted, In 2016 South African white genocide was a fringe issuenow, the richest man in the world, who also owns Twitter, is drawing attention to it. Things are moving in the right direction!

Gab founder Andrew Torba, who tried to get prominent anti-semites to come to his platform, praised Musk as well, tweeting, Took us under a year to get [Musk] talking about White genocide. Give it another six months and hell be noticing and naming.

Elon calling out white genocide in South Africa Good for him, wrote former Trump administration staffer Darren J. Beattie on Twitter. Beattie was fired from his post after a CNN investigation revealed that he had spoken alongside prominent white nationalists at a conference in 2016.

Fuentes former colleague Jaden McNeil posted a screenshot of the tweet on Instagram.

Musk has previously pleased the far-right by welcoming them onto Twitter with the justification of protecting free speech. He also inched closer to white supremacist stances by tweeting about contorted Black crime statistics and other classic white supremacist dog whistles. Musk, however, had not completely aligned himself with white supremacistsafter letting white nationalist Nick Fuentes and neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin back on Twitter earlier this year, he let their accounts be re-suspended for platform violations.

Histweeting about white genocide in South Africa suggests hes willing to go even further to align with people who are not just far-right but openly white supremacist in their politics.

Even though white genocide in South Africa has been fully debunked as a manipulationof tragic anecdotes that dont indicate a meaningful trend, its become a persistent cause for white supremacists over the last decade. Versions of the theory were cited as justification for the Christchurch, El Paso, and Buffalo mass shootings, which were carried out by white supremacists.

Musks tweet may add an unusual level of credibility to the conspiracy theorywhich, aside from briefly being highlighted by Trump in 2018, usually sits on the fringes of mainstream discourse.

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White Nationalists Are Big Fans of Elon's White Genocide Tweets Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Authorities in Melbourne, Australia are closely monitoring a scheduled neo-Nazi gym meet-up, sparking concerns among law enforcement and the community. According to reports in the Australian media, Australian white supremacist groups, including the European Australian Movement and National Socialist Network led by Thomas Sewell, are organizing a "WHITE POWER Lifting Meet" at Legacy Boxing Gym in Sunshine North.

The Legacy Boxing Gym has come under scrutiny for alleged connections to neo-Nazi activists, making the event even more concerning for authorities. Thomas Sewell's involvement in violent incidents, notably a previous assault on a Nine Network security guard in 2021, has added to the unease surrounding the meet-up.

Organizers have promoted the event on social media, inviting members of the wider national community to "celebrate the movement's exponential growth," which has drawn widespread alarm and condemnation for promoting extremist ideologies.

The Anti-Defamation Commission, Australia's leading civil rights organization fighting antisemitism, has condemned the neo-Nazi power-lifting event, highlighting the danger of fostering hatred and violence. Dr. Dvir Abramovich, chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, expressed grave concern over the event, stating that it serves as a disturbing reminder of the emboldened white supremacist movement's recruitment drive, aiming to lure young individuals into embracing a dangerous ideology.

"Who would have thought that in 2023 we would see a stomach-churning Hitler fest in Melbourne where Nazi salutes, incitement, fantasies about an Aryan Australia and gas chambers for Jews, Muslims, First Peoples, members of the LGBTIQ+ community, Asian and African Australians and the disabled will surely be on the agenda," Abramovich said.

He added that "the risk of real-world violence cannot be dismissed. This evil must be confronted and defeated, and when the forces of fear and division rear their ugly head, we must stand together to declare in one voice that there is no place for such bigotry in our state.

"Imagine what would happen if one of the individuals present at this reprehensible gathering is radicalized by absorbing all the poisonous rhetoric they hear and then encounters a visibly identifiable Jewish person or a member of an ethnic group on the street?" Abramovich concluded.

Sewell, a prominent Australian neo-Nazi, has been associated with extremist groups and engaged in controversial public stunts. He has previously attempted to recruit the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings into one of the organizations he leads. Sewell's past actions include a conviction for affray and causing injury, stemming from a violent assault on a security guard in Melbourne.

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Melbourne on high alert over neo-Nazi gym meet-up this weekend - The Jerusalem Post