Denys Prokopenko: The Rise, Capture, and Coming Show Trial of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment Commander
Denys Prokopenko: The Rise, Capture, and Coming Show Trial of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment Commander
Introduction
There is a hackneyed but true saying that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. Since the Russians invaded Ukraine in February, this duality has been most prominently embodied by Azov Regiment Commander Denys “Redis” Prokopenko. To many Ukraine supporters, he is a brave national hero and defender of the Ukrainian homeland, while for large segments of the global far-right movement, he is an archetype of white resistance to the Russian government and its sympathizers. To Russia, however, he is the commander of a Nazi fighting force and a war criminal accused of playing a lead role in the “genocide” against Russian speakers in the Donbas since 2014, which Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted in his February 24 declaration of a “special military operation” in Ukraine (TASS, March 5).
In the first hours of the Russian war in Ukraine in February, a self-recorded video emerged and went viral of then little-known Prokopenko confidently and belligerently goading the Russian invaders by declaring that “the Azov Regiment…will fight to the last drop of blood” to defend the port city of Mariupol and that his men would, “destroy the Russians in the air, on land, and on the water” (Telegram/Azov Mariupol, February 24). The video attracted a great deal of attention on pro-Azov Telegram channels and with supporters elsewhere on the internet. From the beginning of the siege of Mariupol to the battle’s denouncement, Prokopenko periodically released these types of video updates, which were widely shared online.
For nearly 90 days, the “Defenders of Mariupol” put up a legendary level of resistance to Russia’s attempt to seize the city. Far-right supporters in Cyprus accordingly created graffiti art comparing Azov to the vastly outmatched Spartans during the Battle of Thermopylae (Telegram/Ultras Not Reds, May 19). Because of the stoic and charismatic leadership of Prokopenko, and the willingness of his fighters to continue battling the Russians for so long and hard while being completely surrounded in the Azovstol steel factory and under relentless ground assault and ordnance bombardment, Prokopenko became an icon and symbol of white racial resistance to much of the global far right.
Prokopenko’s Combat Career
Although Prokopenko’s profile went truly global with Azov’s performance against the Russian invaders in Mariupol, he had reached his position of leadership by fighting in the Donbas since 2014. There he climbed the ranks to ultimately take command of a platoon and a company of the Azov Regiment. Prior to 2014, however, Prokopenko was a Dynamo Kyiv soccer team hooligan (Army Inform, March 23). He does not quite fit the typical hooligan stereotype though because he is an athlete, well-educated, and fluent in multiple languages. For example, he received a degree from the Department of Germanic Philology at Kyiv National Linguistic University with a focus on teaching English.
Prokopenko is ethnically part Finnic Karelian and comes from an anti-Russian/Soviet warrior lineage. His grandfather was the only member of his family to survive the Winter War of 1939-1940 (Army Inform, March 23). He lived up to this family legacy when he was promoted to an Azov leadership position in 2017 and received the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III Decree from President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019. Furthermore, on March 19, he was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine with the Order of Gold for his battlefield conduct in defense of Mariupol, which is the highest award that the President can bestow upon a citizen of Ukraine (President.gov.uk, March 19).
Prokopenko’s battlefield performance, if not also his looks, has resulted in the European far-right making murals, portraits, clothing, and even one video game depicting him in combat (4Echok, May 25; /Twitter/@jmvasquez1974, May 12). The Italian ultra-nationalist group Nuovo Fronte Politico also made a video of its members chanting in front of a giant Azov Regiment poster featuring Prokopenko’s face (Telegram/Runic Storm, May 14). Far-right supporters of the Azov Regiment would often post a photo of Prokopenko, who appears fit and warrior-like with blond hair and blue eyes, next to the Russian enemies of Azov who they deemed “dysgenic.” One example, which was posted by the Misanthropic Division-linked White Lives Matter Telegram channel, compared Prokopenko’s photo to a detractor and captioned it as “[Alexander] Duginist Serb Incel vs Ukrainian Azov Chad [alpha male]” (Telegram/White Lives Matter, April 9). In many other instances, Azov supporters would use Prokopenko to make racial comparisons between him and Russian soldiers from non-white minority groups, such as Buryats.
White Resistance: Azov as a Bulwark and Prokopenko as an Icon
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has galvanized segments of the global far-right movement, and online activists and radicals have developed a highly racialized framing of the war. Perhaps the core animating narrative is that of an anti-white, Jewish-controlled, Eurasian Asiatic, and multicultural horde waging a war of imperialism against Ukraine, which is depicted as a racially pure white European neighbor (Telegram/Fortress Kyiv, May 11); Telegram/Runic Storm, May 15; Telegram/Forvm 2.0 White Lives Matter, May 20). The Russian soldiers are referred to as “orcs [goblins]”, “pigs”, and “Bolsheviks”, while Ukrainian armed forces are presented as defenders of white civilization and European lands (Telegram/White Lives Matter 2.0, April 29). The Azov Regiment is especially exalted by the pro-Ukraine far right as the highest order of white resistance in the face of invasion and, by extension, Prokopenko is extolled as an example of excellence for leading such a force (Telegram/Forvm 2.0 White Lives Matter, April 16).
The Azov Regiment itself is named after the Sea of Azov. The port city of Mariupol, located on the sea’s littoral, is considered by some to be the true cradle of the Regiment. However, the Azov Regiment is highly controversial due to its professed ultra-nationalist ideology and neo-Nazi symbology, accusations against it for war crimes, and its reputation for violence against Russian speakers (TASS, March 10). Due to its explicitly pro-white ideology, the Azov Regiment has found the support of many far-right elements around the world since its formal introduction in 2014. Because of this, the Azov Regiment has also attracted international foreign fighters, whom Moscow refers to as “mercenaries” (Twitter/@nexta_tv, March 1).
Conversely, to its enemies, the Azov Regiment has become infamous, and when Russian President Vladimir Putin officially declared the launch of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, his stated war aims included “de-Nazification” and “de-militarization” (TASS, May 18). The Azov Regiment, as the most prominent Ukrainian fighting force with a hard right ideological orientation, naturally became the leading focus of Russian propaganda, with others such as the Right Sector, Freikorps, and Centuria also being targeted (TASS, April 27). This made Prokopenko, as the highest ranking and most well-known figure in Azov, one of the most desired captives for the Russians and its allied separatists to prosecute for propaganda purposes.
Show Trials for Prokopenko and the Defenders of Mariupol
Russia’s campaign against Mariupol had a practical military purpose, which was to capture a major coastal port city and effectively turn the Sea of Azov into a “Russian lake” in support of the strategic naval blockade of Ukraine. However, there was also a symbolic aspect to the operation. Mariupol is the birthplace of the Azov Regiment and contained the bulk of Azov fighters as well as high ranking-leadership figures, such as Prokopenko.
Russia sought to destroy these forces and “de-Nazify” them but also sought to capture some of these fighters alive to make propaganda videos showing their neo-Nazi and Viking/pagan tattoos to the Russian public and the world (Zenger News, May 23). Perhaps most of all, Moscow wanted to detain Azov leaders, such as its top commander, Prokopenko, and his deputy, Svyatoslav “Kalina” Palamar, to prosecute in show trials. On May 16, after nearly 90 days of holding out against the Russians in Mariupol, Prokopenko, looking gaunt and wearing a t-shirt that revealed a previously unseen arm wound, announced that the remaining Ukrainian forces holed up in the tunnels below the Azovstal steel factory served out their mission. This signaled their intent to finally surrender (Twitter/@Gerashchenko_en, May 20).
Russia’s propaganda campaign focusing on Prokopenko began immediately after he surrendered along with the last of the remaining militants. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the “so-called commander of the Azov Nazis, due to the hatred of Mariupol residents and the desire of the townspeople to massacre him for his numerous atrocities, was removed from the territory of the plant in a special armored vehicle” (Telegram/Russian Ministry of Defence, May 20). This tactic was designed to give the impression that the local population was extremely hostile towards Prokopenko and the Azov forces he commanded. It would set the stage for Russia and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) to bring them to ‘justice’ in a series of show trials or some kind of collective criminal process.
Shortly after, on May 24, TASS Russian News Agency reported that the LPR was ready to participate in “a court martial for Ukrainian nationalists from the Azov battalion,” citing an interview with LPR’s human rights commissioner, Viktoria Serdyukova (TASS, May 24). It was notable that of the “Big 3” leaders who were holding out in Azovstal steel factory — the others besides Prokopenko were Serhiy “Volyna” Volynsky (commander of the 36th Marine Brigade) and Svyatoslav “Kalina” Palamar (Deputy Commanader of Azov Regiment) — the media was only given a video of Volynsky’s surrender. This perhaps signaled that Russia wants to keep the other Azov Regiment leaders like Prokopenko unseen to build suspense for the show trials (Telegram/South Front, May 20).
Conclusion
The latest update on the Azov leader’s status comes from Prokopenko’s wife, Kateryna. She has been quite vocal in the media, pressuring the Ukrainian government to free her husband and claiming that she received a brief phone call from her spouse, who described the Azovstal steel factory defenders as being held in “satisfactory” conditions and not subjected to violence. However, he may have been monitored and under duress during the conversation. It is unclear exactly where Prokopenko is being held and his wife has no knowledge of whether fighters from Azovstal steel factory, including Prokopenko, are being taken to Russia (Ukrinform, May 25).
