Payton Gendron idolized the “black sun” Nazi symbol used by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov militia and the "butcher of Christchurch". Is it a coincidence?

by Ioannis Damellos

The white supremacist teen who killed at least ten people in a grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York, idolized the same “black sun” Nazi symbol used by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov militia,  which is reportedly being trained by NATO forces amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Maybe Americans should pay more attention to the warnings that Max Rose (member of the US Congress) and Ali H. Soufan (FBI Special Agent) gave in the New York Times on February 11, 2020, when they analyzed how the Nazi battalions have a common nest in Europe and jump from continent to continent at the speed of light.

The Australian neo-Nazi, who in March 2019 killed 51 worshipers in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, claimed in his manifesto that he had traveled to Ukraine. During his attacks, he wore the same symbol that Gendron idolized, the Black Sun of the "Order of Azov".

The FBI director recently warned that American extremists are also traveling abroad for paramilitary training.

Among those trained with the "Order of Azov" are several of the men responsible for inciting violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.

James Alex Fields Jr., who killed a protester in his car, was a member of Vanguard America (above), a group linked to the British network that honored Thomas Mair, the far-right extremist who assassinated British lawmaker Jo Cox. , in 2016.

Mair, who is serving a life sentence, was himself closely associated with National Action (above), a British group that sought to smuggle fighters into Ukraine.

Last June, two more British nationals were convicted of terrorist offenses for promoting, among other groups, the US-based "Atomwaffen Division" (below).

Recently, the "Atomwaffen Division" began posting ISIS-type recruitment videos showing a masked man gesturing with a shotgun as he promised a wave of "perpetual terror."

The impact of these extensive connections everywhere in the Western world is clear, and yet the washing away of Nazism is done with all formality by state leaders and heads of government in the United States and Europe.