MYTH 1: AZOV BRIGADE FIGHTERS SHARE XENOPHOBIC, RACIST AND SEXIST VIEWS

Throughout the unit's history, representatives of different ethnicities and religions have served in it: Georgians, Armenians, Jews, Russians, Belarusians, Crimean Tatars, Greeks. Georgian Giorgi Kuparashvili, who played a key role in the creation of Azov, served in the unit for 9 years, in 2022 took part in the defense of Mariupol, was seriously wounded and evacuated by a helicopter.

Colonel Bakhva Chikobava, a Georgian army officer, was killed during the defense of Mariupol on March 19, 2022. Bakhva Chikobava was a veteran of the Russian-Georgian war and a legend of the Georgian Special Forces. In 2014, he moved to Ukraine and became an instructor at the Azov Special Forces Detachement in 2014. Prior to the full-scale Russian invasion on February 22, 2022, Bakhva, along with a group of other Georgian instructors, arrived in Mariupol to join his alma mater unit amid the military escalation. Together with a small group of sergeants from the Military Commanders School, Azov and National Guard fighters held the city's defense from the north. He was shot at close range with small arms when he came to help fighters of a neighboring unit escape from an operational encirclement.

Azov combat medic Asan "Hasan" Isenadzhiev is a Crimean Tatar who practices Islam and is known for his address to Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the Azovstal plant during its siege by Russian troops.

Mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine "Ummah", Sheikh Murat Suleymanov, recorded a video message in Arabic, in which he called on political and religious leaders of Muslim countries to facilitate the exchange of Azov POWs, including Muslims.

During the defense of Azovstal, Azov fighter Michael, an ethnic Greek, appealed to the Greek parliament to help Ukraine and the defenders of Mariupol. He is currently in Russian captivity. He told Parliament:

Women also serve in the Azov Brigade. Svitlana Vorova has been serving in Azov since 2020. Her son, an Azov fighter, died in combat in 2015. Svitlana decided that she should continue the mission of her eldest son. She took part in the defense of Mariupol and was held in Russian captivity for 11 months.

Also quite a lot of women serve in Azov medical corps (for example, a combat medic with the call sign "Lastivka" and the head of the medical corps' communications department Rina Reznik), in Azov's press service (for example, camera operator Oksana Bondarenko and photographer Elizabeth Servatynska) and in the brigade's recruiting service (for example, the head of the recruiting service Yaroslava Kashka).

During the Siege of Mariupol in 2022, 18 women serving in the Azov regiment were killed in combat.