American Neo-Nazis “Refocus” On American Issues And Away From UkraineSouth Front

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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

Many within the far-right clandestine movement in the United States are advising their followers to stay away from Ukraine as they instead “refocus” on American issues, reported The Guardian. This is a demonstration that international neo-Nazism has lost morale because of Russia’s decisive success in Ukraine.

It is recalled that at the start of the Russian special military operation, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an intelligence bulletin stating that American far-right supporters were heading toward the conflict zone and could use it to hone their terrorist skills, bringing it back to the United States.

After appealing for international volunteers and with encouragement from Western media, the Ukrainian military attracted almost 20,000 people worldwide, as reported by The Guardian. Within weeks, the American “Boogaloo Bois,” as supporters of a far-right anti-government movement are called, were arriving in Ukraine.

Ex-Marine Christopher Pohlhaus, leader of the neo-Nazi network Blood Tribe, said in an audio message published on Telegram in November 2023 that he would not allow his “guys” to join the war in Ukraine. Pohlhaus added that he would continue to support the fight for Ukraine before explaining how a disagreement with his personal ally and the neo-Nazi leader of the Russians fighting for the Kiev regime, Denis Nikitin, to whom the former Marine even swore allegiance too, caused the group to cut off relations.

Despite several of his members being “super excited and getting ready to go to Ukraine,” according to Pohlhaus, they will now dedicate all their money and resources to focusing on domestic activism since they do not see any benefit in fighting for Ukraine.

It is recalled that a prominent far-right publication in September, linked to the disbanded American neo-Nazi terror group Atomwaffen Division, declared that the Ukraine war “doesn’t matter anymore to us” and instead, they would “like to refocus” on American issues.

“Posting about a war half a world away while we have more pressing matters at home is frankly just not in our interests,” the statement said.

Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst of the extreme right for the Counter Extremism Project, has followed right-wing extremists and their efforts and views in Ukraine.

“Chatter among the American online extreme right regarding travel to Ukraine to fight against the Russian invasion has decreased in the last year,” he said, pointing out that in some cases, talk about joining the war was “either never serious” or a blatant “attempt to raise money through crowdfunding, or was abandoned due to the brutal reality of the conflict or no longer seeing a goal for the American movement.”

According to the expert, the threat of prosecution has also acted as a major deterrent to right-wing extremists trying to join the Ukrainian war effort.

“It’s also highly likely that efforts from both the US and Ukrainian governments made travel for these individuals more difficult,” Fisher-Birch said.

Between 2014 and 2022, in the context of the war in Donbass, the Kiev regime continuously passed laws glorifying Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, culminating with then-president Petro Poroshenko establishing in 2018 a national holiday for Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator whose soldiers murdered up to 100,000 Poles, Jews, and others during the Holocaust. Poroshenko even made it a criminal offence to denigrate Bandera’s organisation, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists.

With the rehabilitation of the memory of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators to mainstream society, it is little surprise that Far Right militant organisations, like the Azov Battalion, emerged and established connections with their extremist counterparts in the West.

In fact, despite the Azov Battalion eventually being banned from Facebook for racist and antisemitic content, such as titling one page “Gas Chambers,” they were described by Poroshenko as “our best warriors,” and Vadim Troyan, a veteran of the Azov Battalion and Patriot of Ukraine, was elevated as deputy minister of the interior, thus effectively putting a neo-Nazi in charge of Ukraine’s National Police.

It is little wonder, with such glorification and normalisation of Nazism, that the likes of Pohlhaus, born in Texas, became fascinated with Ukraine and wanted to support Nazi efforts against Russia. However, due to the immense success of Moscow’s de-Nazification efforts, it is evident that international Nazism has lost morale and realised that fighting in Ukraine will lead to certain death.

Just as the Kiev regime is suffering from a lack of money and local manpower, it is evident that there is now a lack of foreign volunteers, with even the most radical and extremist elements now deterred from wanting to fight in Ukraine. This is another factor pointing to the rapid disintegration of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.