If Jewish billionaire Igor Kolomoisky is the godfather of the Azov movement, Khazin is their father.
Some Jews with experience in the Defense Forces of Israel (IDF) have replenished the ranks of Ukrainian volunteer battalions in the ATO zone. A citizen of Israel, Nathan Khazin, took part in Maidan, and then went to serve in the Azov regiment
112 – Ukrainian News Agency
Although little is published about this fact in English, according to the BBC, an Israeli-Ukrainian named Natan Khazin claims to have co-founded the Azov Battalion. In an interview conducted by BBC Ukraine in 2018, which attempted to downplay the claims of rising antisemitism in Ukraine, Khazin is quoted as saying: “I can say that, despite the difficult situation in Ukraine and the war, the level of antisemitism is not growing. Someone in the West simply does not understand the real state of things in Ukraine in this area.”
Mint Press
I’m just wondering if the name Khazim has anything to do with Khazaria…
Sotnik of the Jewish Sotnia of Maidan KHazin: Present government thinks that they have immunity and the national wave rises once in 10 years, but people are more organized and armed now organized and armed
Ukrainian magazine Gordon, 21 november, 2014
Sotnik of the Jewish Self-Defense Sotnia of Maidan and ATO participant Nathan Hazin told the GORDON why the military personnel at the front has no trust towards the government, how Euromaidan benefited the country and why people should not expect fast changes.
By Alexey Stukalo
I believe that Euromaidan changed the country and is still changing it, and will be changing it for a long time. In a word, I can say that no changes in the country are possible without formation of a nation. We had not been at one for years of independence of Ukraine. The concepts of flag, anthem, and statehood were quite ephemeral for many of us. Accordingly, we lived as a state within the state: everyone stands for himself, and the state is against everyone. Or the state was generally a phantom concept for us.
Maidan stirred up people and people began to take pride that they live in Ukraine, that they belong to this land and this country with all its difficulties. It definitely raised the national spirit. The nation that has a spirit has future. It is not a mob of people that have one gastronomic principles. All the rest takes time. This is a beginning, a start. Most of people want blitzkrieg, they want immediate changes and results. But everything was so bewitched here that it is impossible to expect any immediate results. It is clear that today’s authorities do not differ much from the previous ones, but we have freedom of speech and will, and it is a prerequisite of changes.
I do not want a third Maidan in the same format because the price for changes was too high. Too many people had to be buried, many people became disabled for the rest of life for the sake of such changes. I would like to believe that it will never happen, that any changes are possible in a peaceful way and that there will be no violence against people who want to change something. The mighty of this world should be responsible for their actions and should be ready to admit their mistakes when they leave the office.
Unfortunately, it should be noted that today’s power has the same tendencies as the previous one. Unfortunately, people do not learn from other people’s mistakes. But I would like to hope that what we went through for last year will never happen again because it is impossible to stand it once again. This year has passed as 10 years for me.
None of the soldiers at the front have trust towards the current government. The selectivity is based on the principle “against something” rather than “for something”. For this reason, there is no sentimentality regarding the fact that the present power does focus on the human life, nor on human ideals. Everybody just reached the feeding trough. I am more than convinced that they will not manage to use this feeding trough – people “are too strained”, everything is too zealous. Besides, thousands of people who are on the front line perfectly see how they are supplied, how they are taken care of, and they are on the verge of a breakdown. I do not want these people to fight for justice with arms, but it is quite possible.
The matter is about the deprived people, both alive and dead, who are not taken care of by the state, unfortunately, this rage is accumulating. Nothing has been done for the last eight months for an average resident of the country, an ordinary soldier of the Ukrainian army, an average simple to tell the state supported him. Nothing, not even a single populist measure that would make life a little softer, that would show that the state cares for its citizens. It did not happen. Instead – sharing of money, playing on the currency market, repartition of new economic influence. And all this in front of people who went out to fight against it. De facto, people who are in power today think that they are protected by something, that they have immunity and that this wave will not reach them anymore, it rises only once in 10 years. I think that the discontent of people will be shown much quicker now, people are more organized and, unfortunately, they are armed.
one year later he’s the jewish drone expert who says israeli drones are an indicative of russian activity
Expert: Israeli-made drone shot down over Donbas ‘points to Russian involvement in conflict’
Unian News Agency, 08.05.15
According to Israeli Channel 9, the staff of the Air Intelligence of Ukraine unit identified company plates with inscriptions and the manufacturing index of Israel Aerospace Industries when examining the parts of the downed UAV, as reported by one of the unit commanders of Air Intelligence of Ukraine, Israeli Nathan Khazin, who has been launching Ukrainian drones in the ATO area since the summer of 2014.
According to Khazin, this was not the first time that the Ukrainian military has shot down Israeli-made drones. Experts say that Russian drones are also equipped with cameras and inertial orientation systems produced in Israel.
The drones are launched by professional military men, rather than just “militants,” Khazin said. He said it was unlikely that Israel would have sold its drones to the fighters of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. Therefore, the fact that such vehicles are appearing over the Donbas is evidence of the direct military intervention of Russia in this conflict, he said.
Khazin, who has served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), described the current situation as a strange one.
“Israel, declaring neutrality in the conflict, refuses to sell drones and other military equipment to Ukraine, but has supplied the Russian Federation with its obsolete UAV technology. Moscow, in turn, has been supplying its Arab ‘friends’ with the most advanced Russian weapons,” Khazin said.
ONE MORE YEAR AND HE’S The Advisor to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
U.S drones have proven to be ineffective in the war in the Donbas
UA Wire, Friday, December 23, 2016 1:37:00 PM
The drones provided to Ukraine by the United States at a cost of millions of dollars, have proven to be ineffective against jammers and hackers. The Advisor to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Nathan Khazin, stated in an interview with Reuters that the decision to use these drones in the conflict was wrong from the very beginning.
In the summer of 2016, Ukraine received 72 Raven RQ-11B Analog mini-drones. However, these mini-drones have proven to be so ineffective that Khazin would prefer to send them back. The Raven hand-launched drones were supplied to Ukraine as part of the U.S. military assistance program.
It was intended for Kyiv to make extensive use of these portable, lightweight reconnaissance drones, which aren’t equipped with weapons and manufactured by AeroVironment Technology Company, at the front lines. However, the drones have proven to be ineffective in the fight against separatists, who use much more advanced means of electronic warfare than militants in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria.
Russia and the separatist forces they support can intercept and jam video signals and drones’ data. “The equipment is analog, so the channels and data aren’t protected from interception and jamming by modern means of electronic warfare,” Reuters wrote, citing the Command of the Ukrainian Air Force.
U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Russian means of electronic warfare turned out to be much more advanced than expected at the beginning of the conflict. Meanwhile, they added that Ukrainian and U.S. servicemen have gradually adapted to the situation. One of the Ukrainian officials told Reuters on the condition of anonymity that the drones weren’t used at the front line.
The Advisor to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Nathan Khazin, said that the drones are mostly kept in a warehouse and referred to them as a weakness – they enable the enemy to see the location of Ukrainian forces and can be easily shot down if desired. These devices have short battery life and they are unable to perform their key function of gathering intelligence on artillery positions, Khazin stated.
Nathan Khazin told BBC Ukraine that the incompetence of the Ukrainian’s allowed for the provision of ineffective drones. “Those responsible for requesting and deploying the drones were absolutely incompetent. The United States gave them exactly what they asked for instead of adjusting their request in accordance with current technology,” Khazin said. According to the Advisor, the cost of each of the 24 kits received by the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Washington, is about USD 400,000.
Every kit includes three drones, control devices and software. The RQ-11B drones are still used in the conflict zone. “Every time we use these drones, we run the risk that these devices will be captured or destroyed by the enemy,” Khazin clarified.
The original logo design, taken from Khazim’s facebook page
LET’S REWIND HISTORY AND TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT HIS PAST
The Ukrainian Revolution’s Unlikely Street-Fighting Rabbi
By David E. Fishman, April 07, 2014, Jewish Forward Mag
The following interview is with Natan Khazin, commander of a Jewish squadron of fighters in the Ukrainian revolution that took place in Kiev’s Maidan, or central square. It aired on March 20 on Espreso TV, a popular Ukrainian Internet television station and was the first time that Khazin disclosed his identity in public. Khazin was interviewed by Mykola Veresen, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, who was the BBC’s correspondent in Kiev for many years.
The yarmulke-wearing Khazin, a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces and an ordained rabbi, is representative of many young Ukrainian Jews who are Zionist, religiously observant and at the same time strong Ukrainian patriots. Some of them refer to themselves humorously as Zhido-Banderists — a fusion of the pejorative term for “Jew” with the name Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which fought for Ukrainian independence during World War II. The organization’s forces also participated in the massacre of Jews, so the term Zhido-Banderist is self-consciously ironic.
The interview has been edited and condensed.
Mykola Veresen: How did you end up on Maidan?
Natan Khazin: After the barbaric and unprecedented dispersal of demonstrators on November 30, I went to the enormous rally of 1 million people [the following Sunday].
But you became a commander.
It happened very fast. After the first barricades on Hrushevsky Street, when there was talk of storming the parliament, I went over to people and asked: “What’s the main objective? Where are we headed? What are we doing?” After about half an hour, I realized that there was no one in charge on the ground. People didn’t know what to do. They only knew that they must press forward. I asked some of the people there: “Do you know the correlation of forces? Do you know that in order to storm a building, when both sides are equally armed, the storming side needs to have three times as many people?” They answered “no.” When I asked, “What’s the tactical plan?” they didn’t have one.
How did you know about such things?
I have extensive combat experience. I served in the Israel Defense Forces. I was an officer. I know something about offensive and defensive maneuvers under conditions of urban combat.
If it isn’t confidential, where did you serve?
In the Gaza Strip. I know what it’s like to move down a street with people shooting, throwing stones or burning objects.
You are originally from Kiev?
No, I’m from Odessa.
You immigrated to Israel, served in the army there and returned to Ukraine?
Yes. I never imagined that I would put my combat knowledge to use in quiet and peaceful Kiev. People said to me: “In Israel, in the Middle East, things are bad, there’s a war. Come here, stay here and live in peaceful Kiev.” I believed they were right.
How naive of you!
I’ll tell you honestly, at first I was an observer of the clashes, then I was an adviser. But within hours I became an active participant, and people recognized that I had experience. I was in charge of several operations on Hrushevsky Street. And I came to realize that this was my war.
What led you to that conclusion?
People were standing in the streets, unarmed. The authorities were acting like the Kremlin, like Putin against demonstrators. In all the years of Ukrainian independence, I’d never seen so much force used against unarmed civilians — so many vehicles, so many security forces. I decided that I should express my position as a citizen, and help the people that were fighting the regime.
So I went to participate in the storming of the Ukrainian House [Kiev’s central convention center]. I came prepared, knowing that the assault would soon begin. It started on Friday night. After going to synagogue and finishing the Sabbath prayers, I went to Maidan, to the Ukrainian House. We thought there were 40 to 50 soldiers inside, but there were 150 instead — fighters, officers and snipers. After the first three demonstrators were killed, I saw the thirst for revenge in the eyes of my comrades in arms.
I have a question. I really don’t know the answer, and many people will be curious. Can Jews engage in combat on the Sabbath?
If it’s necessary, Jews fight on the Sabbath. Protecting human lives is the highest value. On the Saturdays when I served in the civilian self-defense at Maidan, I shot, traveled in vehicles, I spoke by telephone — I did everything that I would usually not allow myself to do. The Saturdays at Maidan were the first Sabbaths that I violated in 20 years, in order to protect the lives of civilians.
You asked a rabbi, and the rabbi said it was permitted.
I didn’t ask a rabbi, I knew the answer. I have rabbinic ordination, and I could answer the question for myself. I recommended to many other people to participate in self-defense operations on the Sabbath.
Another question: Who was the first person to call himself a “Zhido-Banderist”? Perhaps you coined the term?
No. The copyright to that term is unknown. But as soon as I heard it, I said that I’d rather be called a “Zhido-Banderist” than a “Zhido-Muscovite.” But in all seriousness, in the two and a half months I spent at Maidan, I never heard anyone use the word zhid — not regarding me and not regarding anyone else.
To tell you the truth, during the first few days, I didn’t tell people I was Jewish. Like Queen Esther, who didn’t say anything about her origins. But gradually I decided to come out of the shadows, and began to tell people about my “Zhido-Banderist” origins, about my “Israeli aggressor” past and future. I was shocked by the reaction. People called me “brother.” Everyone. Simply “brother.” I have photographs of me together with different fighting units, from the ultra-nationalist “Svoboda” and other groups. They always greeted me with “Shalom.” And now when I meet them on the street, in civilian clothes, we hug each other.
I read an interview with Natan Sharansky in Israel. They asked him: “What do you think about those Ukrainians? They are such bastards, they hate Jews, right?” And he answered: “Well, that they hate Jews isn’t so. I sat in the Gulag for many years together with Ukrainians, and I didn’t particularly see that. And as for the events in Ukraine, I’ll tell you: I would do anything for the sake of my homeland Israel, for my Jewish people. So I don’t understand, why should Ukrainians be any worse than me, or than anyone else, fighting for their homeland?”
Something changed in me when I saw people on Hrushevsky Street who were ready to sacrifice themselves. A few young men on the street were in the line of fire, and I asked them to move. They said to me, “We’ve come here to die.” When you see before your eyes people who have come to die for the sake of the homeland, this made me feel close, and united with them. I know what it means to be ready to die for the homeland.
Did you have contact with the Israelis? Did they interview you?
Of course. Israeli radio and television stations interviewed me, anonymously. I didn’t want to publicize who I was until very recently. Generally, they viewed what I was doing in a positive spirit, as a good sign. But the Israeli government has displayed an ambiguous attitude toward the events.
Yes, we know that.
This is in the context of the Israeli Foreign Ministry flirting with Moscow. Israel, I’m ashamed to say, has not taken a clear-cut position in support of Ukraine. It hasn’t called the aggression by its name. It hasn’t condemned the annexation of Crimea. Who should understand better than us the meaning of land? We have a slogan in Israel: “Tov lamut be-ad artsenu,” “It’s good to die for our land.”
While, unfortunately, there isn’t governmental support, there is the support of many people in Israel. Lots of young men born in Ukraine, and who served in combat units of the IDF, found out about what I was doing and wrote to me on Facebook. “We’re ready to come and help.” During the hardest days, “We’re ready to come and help.” But there were also a few people who wrote to me: “Why should you die for Ukraine? It’s better to die for Israel.”
At first, the attitude of most Ukrainian Jews toward what I was doing was negative. People scolded me: “What are you doing? You’re disgracing us. You don’t represent the Jewish community, you represent only yourself.” After the bloodshed and the death of many people, including members of my squadron — we lost some very special people — the attitude changed. The community began to take a more active role; they organized assistance. They sent nine heavily wounded people to Israel, and two of them, thank God, have already returned in good shape.
I want to add that in this process, I crossed several thresholds. When people standing next to me on Institutskaya Street were shot before my eyes, and the body of one comrade after another hit by gunfire was dragged away, I lost my last ethnic-psychological distance. After seeing what I saw, I decided that I needed to act in a hard, tough way, without any compromise toward the enemy.
Interview translated and edited by David E. Fishman, director of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s program in the former Soviet Union, Project Judaica.
How a Religious Jew Aids the Ukrainian Army
Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, December 19th, 2016
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak published on his Facebook page a rare photo of a young Ukrainian officer in a black Jewish kippah.
The photo featured Natan Khazin, one of creators and commanders of the “Aerorozvidka” (aerial reconnaissance) unit. Khazin became one of the symbols of Jewish support for Ukraine during and after the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014-2016.
Khazin is a religious Jew, well known in the Central Brodsky Synagogue in Kyiv. After the beginning of the events on the Маidan in January 2014, Khazin managed one of the “hundreds” (“sotnya”) units of the Maidan. In particular, he managed an operation to release the “Ukrainian House” on Khreshchatyk. After the victory of the Maidan, Khazin left for the АТО (anti-terrorist operation) zone and participated in the liberation of the city of Mariupol from Russian-backed separatists in the spring of 2014.
When military operations began in Donbas, Khazin and his friends Yaroslav Gonchar, Volodymyr Kochetkov-Sukach, and Dmytro Lisenbart created the volunteer “Aerorozvidka” unit. At the time they did not have either sufficient technical equipment or support from the Ministry of Defense.
The “Aerorozvidka” unit is now an official Ukrainian subdivision that conducts reconnaissance by means of pilotless flying vehicles and video monitoring complexes. Similar units are used in the armies of the U.S., Great Britain, and Israel. Currently the “Aerorozvidka” unit monitors on-line around the clock three fourths of the battlefront by video cameras that are co-ordinated into one system, and this increases the efficiency of military operations considerably. The “Aerorozvidka” unit has saved the lives of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters.
For this very reason Ukraine’s defense minister visited Khazin’s unit and rewarded many soldiers.
EVEN THE RHETORIC RESEMBLES…
Israeli militia commander fights to protect Kiev
Delta, a Ukrainian-born former IDF soldier, heads a force of 40 men and women, most of whom are not Jewish, against gov’t forces
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ, 28 February 2014, 9:37 pm
Delta, the nom de guerre of the Jewish commander of a Ukrainian street-fighting unit, is pictured in Kiev earlier this month. (photo credit: ‘Delta’/JTA)
He calls his troops “the Blue Helmets of Maidan,” but brown is the color of the headgear worn by Delta — the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution. Under his helmet, he also wears a kippah.
Delta, a Ukraine-born former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, spoke to JTA Thursday on condition of anonymity. He explained how he came to use combat skills he acquired in the Shu’alei Shimshon reconnaissance battalion of the Givati infantry brigade to rise through the ranks of Kiev’s street fighters. He has headed a force of 40 men and women — including several fellow IDF veterans — in violent clashes with government forces.
Several Ukrainian Jews, including Rabbi Moshe Azman, one of the country’s claimants to the title of chief rabbi, confirmed Delta’s identity and role in the still-unfinished revolution.
The “Blue Helmets” nickname, a reference to the UN peacekeeping force, stuck after Delta’s unit last month prevented a mob from torching a building occupied by Ukrainian police, he said. “There were dozens of officers inside, surrounded by 1,200 demonstrators who wanted to burn them alive,” he recalled. “We intervened and negotiated their safe passage.”
The problem, he said, was that the officers would not leave without their guns, citing orders. Delta told JTA his unit reasoned with the mob to allow the officers to leave with their guns. “It would have been a massacre, and that was not an option,” he said.
The Blue Helmets comprise 35 men and women who are not Jewish, and who are led by five ex-IDF soldiers, says Delta, an Orthodox Jew in his late 30s who regularly prays at Azman’s Brodsky Synagogue. He declined to speak about his private life.
Delta, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s, moved back to Ukraine several years ago and has worked as a businessman. He says he joined the protest movement as a volunteer on Nov. 30, after witnessing violence by government forces against student protesters.
“I saw unarmed civilians with no military background being ground by a well-oiled military machine, and it made my blood boil,” Delta told JTA in Hebrew laced with military jargon. “I joined them then and there, and I started fighting back the way I learned how, through urban warfare maneuvers. People followed, and I found myself heading a platoon of young men. Kids, really.”
The other ex-IDF infantrymen joined the Blue Helmets later after hearing it was led by a fellow vet, Delta said.
As platoon leader, Delta says he takes orders from activists connected to Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist party that has been frequently accused of anti-Semitism and whose members have been said to have had key positions in organizing the opposition protests.
“I don’t belong [to Svoboda], but I take orders from their team. They know I’m Israeli, Jewish and an ex-IDF soldier. They call me ‘brother,’” he said. “What they’re saying about Svoboda is exaggerated, I know this for a fact. I don’t like them because they’re inconsistent, not because of [any] anti-Semitism issue.”
The commanding position of Svoboda in the revolution is no secret, according to Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Washington DC-based Heritage Foundation think tank.
“The driving force among the so-called white sector in the Maidan are the nationalists, who went against the SWAT teams and snipers who were shooting at them,” Cohen told JTA.
Still, many Jews supported the revolution and actively participated in it.
Earlier this week, an interim government was announced ahead of election scheduled for May, including ministers from several minority groups.
Volodymyr Groysman, a former mayor of the city of Vinnytsia and the newly appointed deputy prime minister for regional policy, is a Jew, Rabbi Azman said.
“There are no signs for concern yet,” said Cohen, “but the West needs to make it clear to Ukraine that how it is seen depends on how minorities are treated.”
On Wednesday, Russian State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin said Moscow was concerned about anti-Semitic declarations by radical groups in Ukraine.
But Delta says the Kremlin is using the anti-Semitism card falsely to delegitimize the Ukrainian revolution, which is distancing Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence.
“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests, and the claims to the contrary were part of the reason I joined the movement. We’re trying to show that Jews care,” he said.
Anti-government protesters lob stones during clashes with riot police outside Ukraine’s parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014. (photo credit: AP/Efrem Lukatsky)
Still, Delta’s reasons for not revealing his name betray his sense of feeling like an outsider. “If I were Ukrainian, I would have been a hero. But for me it’s better to not reveal my name if I want to keep living here in peace and quiet,” he said.
Fellow Jews have criticized him for working with Svoboda. “Some asked me if instead of ‘Shalom’ they should now greet me with a ‘Sieg heil.’ I simply find it laughable,” he said. But he does have frustrations related to being an outsider. “Sometimes I tell myself, ‘What are you doing? This is not your army. This isn’t even your country.’”
He recalls feeling this way during one of the fiercest battles he experienced, which took place last week at Institutskaya Street and left 12 protesters dead. “The snipers began firing rubber bullets at us. I fired back from my rubber-bullet rifle,” Delta said.
“Then they opened live rounds, and my friend caught a bullet in his leg. They shot at us like at a firing range. I wasn’t ready for a last stand. I carried my friend and ordered my troops to fall back. They’re scared kids. I gave them some cash for phone calls and told them to take off their uniform and run away until further instructions. I didn’t want to see anyone else die that day.”
Currently, the Blue Helmets are carrying out police work that include patrols and preventing looting and vandalism in a city of 3 million struggling to climb out of the chaos that engulfed it for the past three months.
But Delta has another, more ambitious, project: He and Azman are organizing the airborne evacuation of seriously wounded protesters — none of them Jewish — for critical operations in Israel. One of the patients, a 19-year-old woman, was wounded at Institutskaya by a bullet that penetrated her eye and is lodged inside her brain, according to Delta. Azman says he hopes the plane of 17 patients will take off next week, with funding from private donors and with help from Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel.
“The doctor told me that another millimeter to either direction and she would be dead,” Delta said. “And I told him it was the work of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.” – SOURCE
Can you see any scenario in which Nazis and Jews would have survived the past century without each other?
To be continued?
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