Right Sector had limited its ambitions to just "build a nationalist Ukrainian state and stage a nationalist revolution."

About Azov and their rivals and also liberals (and Antifa), let me quote the Soros Times (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/rise-of-azov/), from 2016:

One such proponent is Vita Zaverukha, a neo-Nazi who served in the Aidar volunteer battalion. Zaverukha is now in pre-trial detention accused of robbing a petrol station and killing two police officers. She is one of the “patriots, persecuted by Poroshenko’s Jewish regime” that are mourned by the ultra-right.

For the average Ukrainian citizen, the news that Russian ultranationalists were forcibly breaking up protest rallies in Kyiv sounded unbelievable. Many people initially took it for a propaganda hoax. But soon, new (and no less strange) facts came to light for Ukraine’s patriotic public, who are used to supporting Azov and rejecting any criticism aimed at it.

On 25 January, a report of “a raid to uncover illegal migrants” in a town in the Kyiv region appeared on Azov’s website. Neo-Nazi “activists”, together with local police (whose regional chief is a former Azov commander), broke into flats in the town of Bila Tserkva. The aim? To check the documents of African men. The whole episode was recorded on video, and uploaded to the internet.

A few days later, Azov published an article decrying “Islamist expansion” in L’viv. Its author objected to Crimean Tatars, who had fled their homeland after Russian annexation, moving to Lviv and engaging in “propaganda for their religious beliefs”. The article saw their request for a mosque as an intolerable “trial of their fellow-citizens’ patience”.

It must be said that, until recently, Azov has been extremely careful to project a “respectable” image.

This incident aroused such a scandal (unlike the racist note of “illegal migrants”) that the article was removed from the Azov site. After Crimea, Ukraine’s liberal-patriotic public, which already felt sympathetic towards the Crimean Tatars, has begun to show public approval and respect for this people’s history and culture.

Indeed, the “Islamist expansion” article, while typical of far-right thinking, seemed so improbable to liberal journalists that they had to phone Azov’s press office to check whether it was a mistake. (The press officer confirmed: “we stand for Crimea being Ukrainian, not Tatar”.)

(...)

Part of the reason for this change of tack could be the more stable situation on the eastern Ukrainian front, which has allowed Azov to switch their attention to a war on “internal enemies”. But the main reason has to be the long term political strategy of Azov’s leadership. All the incidents mentioned above are formally linked not to the Azov National Guard Regiment but to a different structure, the Azov Civil Corps, a proto-party that will obviously form the political wing of the movement.

This is not the first attempt by an ultra right group to enter politics: Right Sector tried before, but won so few votes that they tried to organise an armed coup instead (also without success). In the autumn of 2014, Azov was only able to win a parliamentary seat for its leader Biletsky thanks to an armed break-in at a polling station during the count and the coercion of electoral committee members to produce an “honest result”.

But now, according to a number of recent statements, Azov’s leaders are determined to extend their representation in Ukraine’s parliament. To succeed via either the bullet or the ballot box, Azov needs to gain the loyalty of the majority of far right constituency, which are now roughly split into two camps. While Azov and the groups who share its views are linked to Avakov (hence their guarded attitude to any pronouncements against, or simply unfavourable to, the current government), the other bloc consists of Right Sector and the smaller groups aligned with it.

Both camps, battling for power over the Ukrainian ultra right, present themselves as genuine nationalists, true to their ideals, and accuse their rivals of colluding with the “Jew-ridden government”. And the recent behaviour of Azov has to be seen in the context of this intensified rivalry for the loyalty of a narrow right-wing subculture.

These are the people who last December staged a torchlight procession in Mariupol around an ugly monument to the medieval Kievan Prince Svyatoslav, erected illegally where a statue of Lenin used to stand. For most people, Svyatoslav is a barely remembered figure out of school history textbooks. But Ukrainian neo-Nazis mythologise Svyatoslav as the Nordic pagan who overthrew the Judaic Khazar Empire in the 10th century.

This rivalry is also why Azov needed to assert its uncompromising position towards anti-fascists on 19 January. And it explains Azov’s return to xenophobic rhetoric and activity, designed to consolidate the far right around it, even at the price of some support among the “civilian” public.

For the same reason, Azov is now flirting with a youth subculture that is predominantly apolitical (musicians, environmental and animal rights activists, bohemian types), but which is quite swiftly moving to the right. Hence, for example, the news that Azov is planning to physically punish so-called “doghunters”, sadists who get their kicks from poisoning or otherwise cruelly killing stray dogs.

This is a typical ultra right pastime: Russian and Ukrainian neo-Nazis used to organise similar “paedophile hunts”, where they would use social media to set up a meeting between a man and a supposed underage girl and then humiliate their victim on video. The new anti-doghunter campaign, used at the right place and the right time, can get results: many apolitical and left-liberal activists involved in the animal rights movement have welcomed Azov’s initiative.

The battle for the attention of Green activists heated up at a Climate Change march in November, when Azov members unfurled their banners emblazoned with the stylised Wolfsangel symbol, but demanded that the anarchists roll up their green and black flags; the anarchists left the main march and held their own separate rally as a result.

Azov has also become a promoter of mass cultural events (concerts, sporting competitions etc.), while at the same time trying to ruin similar initiatives conducted by their rivals. On 16 January, for example, just a few days before the planned memorial rally in Kyiv, Azov members invaded a “free market” organised by the Direct Action student union (whom Biletsky falsely accused on television of fighting on the separatists’ side). In the process, they injured three left-wing activists and a passer-by whom they also took for a left winger.

The final factor in the rise of Azov is the political infighting over the government led by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. In the unending struggle for power between Yatsenyuk’s team and that of President Petro Poroshenko, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is largely on the PM’s side.

Avakov recently got into a public spat with Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia who is now governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region and a close ally of Poroshenko. With uncertainty around the government’s future and accompanying reshuffles, Avakov holds a trump card: a regiment of ultra right fighters.

It is quite possible that the recent rise in Azov’s profile is linked to Avakov’s desire to persuade the president that he alone is capable of keeping Biletsky and his adherents under control, and that the fall of the Yatsenyuk government could have unforeseen consequences. But is that really the case? The opposite is more likely to be true: the presence of patron in the cabinet is the main factor that has given Azov its privileged position within the far right.

Without its government protector, it would be much more difficult for the National Guard regiment to increase its political capital. But the chances are that it won’t come to that: the most recent news is that at talks between Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko, it was decided to leave Avakov in his post as interior minister. The blackmail worked, apparently.

What does all this mean in practice? One thing is certain: the further rise of neo-Nazi street violence. Here, left and liberal activists will be essentially incidental victims of the struggle for power within the far right.

Will this struggle for “internal” power lead to a worse “external” image for the Ukrainian ultra right? Experience tells us that rational argument and even clear factual evidence have little effect on the consciousness of the Ukrainian liberal-patriotic intelligentsia, blinkered by their emotional response to Azov, the “defenders of Mariupol” who can therefore do no evil.

Given this state of affairs, the evident surprise and annoyance on the liberal intelligentsia’s part at the neo-Nazis’ recent actions may be considered a major step forward. Unfortunately, however, the main factor in the liberals’ criticism of Azov is the lack of a thought-out political agenda behind its actions and statements, rather than the actions in themselves.

A journalist on a popular TV channel who was obviously confused by Azov’s motives and supported the anti-fascists’ position, asked Biletsky whether he could hold off any street attacks at least until after the Dutch referendum on an EU Association Agreement with Ukraine (due to take place on 6 April) to avoid further damage to the country’s image.

As well as the liberals’ shame before civilised Europe, another important factor is the opinions expressed by the public in various polls: despite Poroshenko’s falling popularity ratings, most Ukrainians are tired of war and not convinced that their country needs the “real fascist junta” that the far right dreams about.

However, the further Ukraine’s government pushes austerity policies and neoliberal reforms, the more likely we are to see a growth in support for a hypothetical “strong arm” — one that would end corruption and defend the privileges of ethnic Ukrainians.