Europe Trains Ukrainian Nazi's

 

Summary of Findings

Since 2016, the European Security Academy (ESA) an EU-based company that offers advanced training programs for security, law enforcement and military professionals, has provided sophisticated training geared towards combat application to elements of Ukraine’s controversial Azov Regiment, also known as the Azov Battalion, which has been integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard in Mariupol. A large group from Ukraine consisting at least partially of Azov veterans, along with likely current members of Azov movement and other far-right activists, received special-ops like training in the ESA training center in Poland. Among recipients of ESA advanced firearms and tactics training are also current activists of far-right organizations in Ukraine linked to attacks on, or harassment of Ukrainian Roma, LGBT persons and rights activists: Tradition and Order, The National Corps and The National Militia. 

At least one individual who previously received sophisticated training from ESA recently provided firearms training to members of the Azov-linked “National Corps”, an ultra-nationalist organization in Ukraine recently linked to attacks on ethnic minorities and other vulnerable populations.

Although the ESA Managing Director told Bellingcat that the company would deny training to applicants who support far-right ideologies and/or have links to violent ultra-nationalist organizations, several ESA training recipients from Ukraine have documented, public connections to ultra-nationalist organizations and ideologies. In some cases, these recipients of training are currently members of ultra-nationalists organizations, and others have over the years publicly shared numerous photographs of themselves giving Nazi salutes, or have highly-visible tattoos suggesting support for white supremacist movements. 

At least one recipient of ESA training in Poland, who is an active member of the ultra-nationalist group “Tradition and Order”, openly admitted online to supporting a “national-socialist” ideology. Another ESA training recipient with multiple certifications from the company has a highly visible white supremacist “Celtic Cross” tattoo which can be easily spotted in a photograph posted by the company to their Facebook page. Despite the fact that ESA said that they would not provide training to individuals linked to far-right ideologies and organizations, one individual who received sophisticated weapons training from ESA has swastikas tattooed on his head and was involved in a number of high-profile, internationally reported incidents of racist displays and attacks in Ukraine. 

The ESA Managing Director told Bellingcat that the company conducted in-depth background checks of applicants, but did not specify disqualifying criteria.

This investigation starts with an introduction to the cast of characters featured in the research, followed by background information on the ESA and Azov. The latter half of the investigation details how many far-right, ultra-nationalist individuals, including some self-admitted neo-Nazis and white supremacists, took part in ESA trainings in Ukraine and Poland.

Key Figures and Groups

Individuals

• Arsen Avakov is Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs since 2014 and Azov’s political patron, whose ties to Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists go back almost a decade, according to Anton Shekhovtsov, renowned researcher of the European far-right. It’s under Avakov that Azov was incorporated into the National Guard in a move that, although presented as means to defuse the ultra-nationalist battalion, led to its explosive growth and branching out into the National Corps political party and increasingly assertive National Militia street movement.
• Andriy Biletsky is the head of Azov movement and member of the Parliament of Ukraine. Biletsky’s whole life is in ultra-nationalist politics, and he cultivated Azov from a ragtag group of poorly-armed militants and soccer hooligans into a large three-pronged movement, and an aggressively expanding political and street movement with mostly unchecked ambitions. Biletsky enjoys patronage of Ukraine’s Minister of Interior Affairs Arsen Avakov and is allegedly linked to the latter for nearly a decade.
• Andrzej Bryl is the founder of 1500+employee strong Delta Security Group, which includes the European Security Academy (ESA). Bryl is a military and security expert in Poland with reportedly decades of experience, including alleged cooperation with Poland’s military. His company’s clients include various international governments. Bryl posed in a picture with a group of trainees from Ukraine, comprised at least partially of Azov veterans and activists of ultra-nationalist organizations in Ukraine.
• Bartosz Bryl is managing director of the European Security Academy. Although he insists that the company would deny training to ultra-nationalists and conducts in-depth background checks of its applicants, the company provided services to the controversial Azov Regiment and, per Bellingcat research, trained ultra-nationalists who hold leadership positions in organizations with a history of violence, individuals that openly profess support for “national-socialism” and white supremacy, and those mired in high-profile racist attacks in Ukraine.
• Sergiy Korotkih is one of Azov’s combat commanders and organizational leaders and a former citizen of Belarus with ties to neo-Nazi organizations in Russia. He was granted Ukrainian citizenship by President Petro Poroshenko in 2014. He is reportedly a close associate of Arsen Avakov as the head of the Department for the Protection of Strategic Objects of the National Police of Ukraine, a distinct police unit that apparently received ESA training in Ukraine in July 2016, although being staffed, per photographic evidence, with a number of individuals who openly and publicly support far-right, white supremacist, and ultra-nationalist ideologies.
• Nikita “Odissey” Makeev is a combat veteran of Azov, a Russian citizen, and an ESA trainee from 2016. He is a leader of GO Zirka (Civic Organization “Defense and Reconstruction of the Country”), a satellite organization of Azov’s National Corps and National Militia.
• Ihor “Maliar” is an Azov combat veteran and a prominent figure in Ukraine’s far-right scene, with a huge online following of nearly 20,000 on Instagram. He was an active participant of some of Ukraine’s iconic and more controversial moments during the Euromaidan demonstrations, as well as the perpetrator of a high-profile racist attack in 2015 that was widely reported in international media. Maliar sports clearly visible swastika tattoos on his head and was able to receive sophisticated ESA training in 2016.
• Ivan Pilipchuk is an apparent veteran of Ukraine’s war with Russia and Russia-led separatists and is currently one of the leaders of “Tradition and Order”, a violent ultra-nationalist organization connected by Human Rights Watch to attacks on Ukrainian Roma, LGBT persons, and LGBT rights activists. Pilipchuk’s online presence suggests he self-identifies as a “national-socialist”, and shows a penchant for posing – non-ironically – with Nazi salutes. He was a part of a large group from Ukraine, comprised at least partially of Azov veterans, who trained in Poland with ESA in 2017.
• Vadim Lapaev “Balak” is a veteran of Azov, and apparently an activist of the National Militia, a street branch of the Azov movement that has used violence to further its goals. His online presence suggests that he supports ultra-nationalist ideologies and there are multiple photographs of Lapaev posing with Nazi salutes, including in armed groups and with a swastika banner. In one of the photos, he is seen with a swastika necklace and a white supremacist-linked Othala rune tattooed on his chest. He was able to obtain multiple certifications from ESA in Ukraine. One of Lapaev’s white supremacist tattoos, a Celtic Cross on his left hand, is clearly seen in one of the photos publicly posted by ESA on Facebook.

Organizations

• The Azov Regiment (also called the Azov Battalion or just “Azov”) is effectively an autonomous special operations detachment in the National Guard of Ukraine long mired in controversy because of its far-right ideology, along with credible accusations of human rights abuses from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Azov is a three-pronged movement with a well-trained and armed military power integrated with the Ukrainian National Guard, a growing political movement with own political party, The National Corps, and a vigilante street movement called the National Militia. ESA instructors led an intensive week-long training for Azov in Ukraine in 2016, developed a boot camp for the regiment and trained Azov veterans and activists of the movement on other occasions.
• The European Security Academy (ESA) is a large military and security training provider headquartered in Wroclaw, Poland. The Discovery Channel has describedthe ESA as the “world’s top security academy”, and the ESA training center near Poznan, Poland is the world’s largest outside of the United States, according to the BBC. Although ESA told Bellingcat it would deny training to members of violent ultra-nationalist organizations and neo-Nazis, the company provided training to publicly white supremacist and neo-Nazi members of the Azov Regiment and trained other members of Ukrainian ultra-nationalist organizations. Some of such trainees have visible white-supremacist tattoos, a very public online presence showing white supremacist and far-right ideologies, and were involved in high-profile racist attacks reported in international media.
• The Department for the Protection of Strategic Objects of The National Police of Ukraine (Ukrainian: ВІДДІЛ ОХОРОНИ ОБ’ЄКТІВ СТРАТЕГІЧНОГО ЗНАЧЕННЯ ПРИ ДЕПАРТАМЕНТІ ДЕРЖАВНОЇ СЛУЖБИ ОХОРОНИ ПРИ МВС УКРАЇНИ, ВООСЗДДСО) is a distinct protection police unit headed by a prominent Azov leader with links to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs. Photographic evidence suggests that the ESA trained the unit in July 2016, and Bellingcat linked numerous participants of this training to Azov and Azov-linked violent far-right organizations, including at least one individual previously involved in a high-profile racist attack in Ukraine reported by international media.
• The National Corps is Azov’s far-right political party, founded in 2016 and headed by Andriy Biletsky. The party has fewer than 20,000 member and only two members in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada parliament (out of 450 total MPs). The party aims, among other things, to re-establish Ukraine as a nuclear-armed state, promotes  “Ukrainecentrism”, and opposes EU institutions which it describes as “Brussel’s bureaucracy”. The ESA trained prominent National Corps activists, possibly contributing to the party’s capacity for violence since at least one ESA trainee later acted as National Corps firearms instructor.
• The National Militia is Azov’s aggressively expanding street branch headed by the regiment’s former military commander. Along with the National Corps, it reportedly carried out attacks on minorities in Ukraine, and seeks to mirror law-enforcement functions to enforce “Ukrainian order”.
• GO Zirka (Civic Organization “Defense and Reconstruction of the Country”) is a satellite organization of Azov movement, headed by Sergiy Korotkih, a former commander of Azov’s military reconnaissance and current head of Department for the Protection of Strategic Objects of the National Police of Ukraine. One of GO Zirka other leaders Nikita Makeev, an Azov combat veteran and Russian citizen who received ESA training in 2016.
• “Tradition and Order” is an aggressively expanding violent ultra-nationalist organization that has reportedly carried out attacks on Ukrainian Roma, LGBT individuals, and LGBT rights activists. It provides advanced firearms and combat tactics training to members. At least one of the organization’s leaders, a self-admitted “national-socialist” with a penchant for giving Nazi salutes, attended an ESA course in Poland.

“World’s Top Security Academy” in Ukraine

The ESA is a military and security training provider headquartered in Wroclaw, Poland. Per the company’s site, it has representatives in multiple EU countries, the Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, and Brazil. The Discovery Channel has described the ESA as the “world’s top security academy”, and the ESA training center close to Poznan, Poland is the world’s largest outside of the United States, according to the BBC.

ESA Shooting Range Complex, part of ESA’s training center that covers 150 hectares; Source: E.S.A. – European Security Academy Facebook

Approximately 650-700 people attended ESA courses each year, according to a 2015 article in The Warsaw Business Journal. The center serves as a major training hub for the private military and security contracting industry internationally and was mentioned in a 2015 AFP report. 

According to the ESA’s site, it is part of Delta Security Group, which employs 1500+ people. Both ESA and Delta were founded by Andrzej Bryl, and Bryl family members appear to hold notable positions in both companies.

The ESA entered the Ukrainian market in early 2015. In May of that year, it conducted a Tactical Carbine Level 1 open-air seminar for 12 participants in Zhytomyr, according to the Ukrainian Gun Owners Association.

Further Reading: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/08/30/ukrainian-far-right-fighters-white-supremacists-trained-major-european-security-firm/