Joe, one person did not do it. Azov, Aydar and other Nazi groups have been also extensively funded by Israel, as Asa Winstanley, Max Blumenthal and Robert Inlakesh have reported since 2014. This is from 2018, by Max: https://therealnews.com/israel-is-arming-ukraines-blatantly-neo-nazi-militia-the-azov-battalion

Inlakesh: "It may come as a shock, but there are actually many Israeli Jews who fight with ultra-nationalist Ukrainian groups and who coordinate closely with, or even belong to, neo-Nazi groups such as Azov. Konstantyn Batozsky, for example, who stated that he worked as a political consultant in Donetsk for the Azov Battalion between 2014-15, even defended Azov members who had tattoos of Nazi symbols.

“They were soccer hooligans and wanted attention, so yeah, I was shocked when I saw guys with swastika tattoos,” Batozsky said of Azov Battalion members he personally got to know. He then followed that statement by saying. “But I talked with them all the time about being Jewish and they had nothing negative to say. They had no anti-Jewish ideology.” Another Jewish Israeli, Daniel Kovzhun, claims that “there were Orthodox Jews in Azov,” which he claims came down to all members being Ukrainian nationalists and therefore Jewishness was not an issue.

Muslims however, seem to be a major issue for the Azov Battalion. The Islamophobia present not only in Azov, but also in the National Guard of Ukraine, came through strongly on social media as the official National Guard site glorified the Azov Battalion as they dipped their bullets in pig fat. The video was directed at Muslim soldiers from Chechnya who are fighting on the side of Russia and were described as “orcs” by the National Guard on Twitter. In the video, one of the Azov fighters can be heard saying: “Dear Muslim brothers, in our country, you will not go to heaven.” It is a belief shared by some white supremacists that if they kill a Muslim with a bullet coated in pig fat, the Muslim will not enter heaven.

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.”

In The Forward, a Jewish news outlet, Khazin is described as a “yarmulke-wearing … veteran of the Israel Defense Forces and an ordained rabbi.” The description continues:

[He 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.”

During an interview, published in a condensed form by The Forward, Khazin is asked, “If it isn’t confidential, where did you serve [while in the Israeli military]?” He answers: “In the Gaza Strip. I know what it’s like to move down a street with people shooting, throwing stones or burning objects.”

All the above examples of Israelis actively collaborating with known neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine are of private Israeli citizens and there is no direct connection to the Israeli government. However, the Israeli government itself seems to have participated, much like the United States and other NATO nations, in supplying weapons to the Ukrainian military, which is considered by some as a form of indirectly arming the Azov Battalion and other ultra-right elements. In 2018, more than 40 human rights activists filed a petition with the Israeli High Court, in which they argued that the Israeli weapons were being sent to serve those who espouse neo-Nazi beliefs. They cited “evidence that the right-wing Azov militia, whose members are part of Ukraine’s armed forces, and are supported by the country’s ministry of internal affairs,” were using the weapons, according to a report published in Haaretz.

Although there is no concrete evidence of a direct Israeli government link with the Azov Battalion or other neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, there are clearly Israeli citizens who are directly aiding them. There are, however, reports that claim that Israeli forces have directly trained the Azov Battalion and Azov has been shown to possess Israeli-made weapons. When such a connection between neo-Nazi groups and Israeli Jews in Ukraine clearly exists, this in of itself should call into question the sincerity of Western media’s attempt to use President Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity in order to push to the side claims that there are hardline neo-Nazi elements inside Ukraine. Furthermore, these groups are clearly able to coexist beside Israeli citizens, so long as those Jewish Israelis are themselves Ukrainian nationalists. This is not to say that anti-Semitism does not exist in these groups, however."

https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-links-to-ukraine-neo-nazi-movement/279936/