Italian Police Foil Deadly Plot by Neo-Nazis Linked to Ukraine’s Azov Battalion

The alleged plots against various Italian targets — including a police station — appears to be the first attempted terror attack in Western Europe linked to Ukraine’s official Nazi military formations

Police in Italy arrested four suspected neo-Nazis with links to Ukraine’s notorious Azov Battalion who were accused of plotting to carry out “violent acts” against both civilians and police, according to local media.

Photos released by police show the Nazi paraphernalia seized in around 30 raids on members of the “Order of Hagal” throughout the country included photos of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and t-shirts bearing the logo of Ukraine’s official Nazi regiment, the Azov Battalion.

“According to the investigators, the objective identified by the members of the Order of Hagal was the Marigliano [police] barracks,” Italian outlet Today Chronicle wrote Tuesday.

According to the Italian publication, one of the suspects wanted by police “disappeared” before he could be apprehended – a 27-year-old Ukrainian national named Anton Radomosky, who the outlet reported “would have offered his ‘intermediation’ between the Order of Hagal and neo-Nazi groups such as the Azov Battalion,” which they note “is particularly active in the context of the War in Donbass.”

Information published by ANSA, Italy’s leading news agency, indicates that Radomosky “is currently in Ukraine, and the investigation showed that he was in contact with the Azov Battalion.”

According to another Italian source, the “Ukrainian accomplice… wanted to cause an explosion in a shopping center.” Corriere Del Mezzogiorno indicated “the cell had contacts” with not only “Ukrainian ultranationalist formations such as the Azov Battalion,” but also the notorious Ukrainian “Right Sector” nazi militia.

The EU and Interpol have been fretting for months about the likelihood that weapons being shipped to Ukraine amid NATO’s proxy war on Russia will end up in criminal hands. As Interpol chief Jurgen Stock explained in early June, “Once the guns fall silent [in Ukraine], the illegal weapons will come. We know this from many other theaters of conflict. The criminals are even now, as we speak, focusing on them.”