AZOV’S ORIGINS

The Azov Regiment began as one of many  militias of volunteer fighters who banded together to fight pro-russian separatists backed by Moscow who carved out two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula

Mariupol is the spiritual home of the Azov  Regiment which it helped Ukraine recapture from pro-russian fighters in 2014 and where it had a permanent base until the 2022 invasion