[racional]

Didn't mean to ignore your half of your preceding post; just that takes time to unpack and respond to these points, and honestly, it seems a lot of your arguments just aren't well-constructed.

But leaving that aside, and to address just the first line, if I may, of your post above:

I'm quite familiar with Ukraine's collaborationist history in WW II. Of course callaboration was widespread, and the occupation forces had substantial support (or at least acquiescence) throughout the population -- again, as in all occupied countries. There's a reason they were able to pull of the multi-year Babyn Yar operation just outside the center of Kyiv, were able to recruit so many Trawniki to do the dirty in their camps, and so on. This isn't a revelation to me at all.

My question to you is -- how does any of this history move the needle (serve as "proof" in your words) -- or have any other kind of bearing, for that matter -- in regard to any of the assertions you're making about Azov today? As I asked in my most recent response (and you "ignored"): what is the actual chain of implication and substantiation here?

I'm just not seeing any. If you can enlighten me as to why I should, perhaps we can continue with the other points. But in any case that's all I have time for right now.

Because it actually takes a lot of time to answer you carefully and patiently like this, you know.

[racional]

And about that guy they put in front of the Canadian parliament (even though he has absolutely nothing to do with Azov, and hence nothing one might say about him can have any bearing on the original assertions you were making) -- just to get him out of the way:

If you think that anyone who fought or otherwise worked for the Germans -- even if they served in the camps and did horrific things there (which this guy did not apparently), or served in a nominally elite military unit (as he did) -- is ipso facto a Nazi -- then it seems you haven't taken stock of one of the cardinal rules by which the Nazis operated in these countries (or any long-lived dictatorship operates for that matter, including certainly Putin's).

Which is: they don't need you to join the Party, or even believe the ideological flim-flam (and in the Nazis' case -- they definitely didn't need you to be antisemitic). You can even be a bit skeptical, or outright disdainful under the hood. At the end of the day, they don't really care about what your think as an individual. And they don't need you to be hip to their Master Plan.

They just need you to go along with it.