Andrii Biletskyi

Biography Andriy Biletsky was born in 1979 in Kharkiv, Soviet Union. Biletsky's father Yevheniy Mykhailovych Biletsky hailed from an old Cossack family that founded the village of Krasnopavlivka in Kharkiv Oblast, while Biletsky's mother Olena Anatoliyivna Biletsky (née Lukashevych) descended from a noble family from Zhytomyr region, which includes the Decembrist who founded the .

In his youth, Biletsky practiced several types of martial arts and boxing. As a child, he refused to wear the uniform of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. Biletsky, along with senior schoolmates, raised the Ukrainian flag over his school. His major patriotic influence in his youth was his father's gift of a book prohibited in the Soviet Union, History of Ukraine for Children by . In 2001, Biletsky graduated with honors from the History faculty of the University of Kharkiv. His thesis was about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The same year Biletsky participated in the Ukraine without Kuchma (UBK) protests, for which he was placed under administrative arrest. The Security Service of Ukraine pressured the university administration to expel Biletsky from the institution.

Political activism (2002–2013) In 2002 Biletsky became a leader of the Kharkiv branch of the political organization Tryzub, and was a member of the Kharkiv section of the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), but opposed the idea of its transformation into Svoboda.

On 5 May 2014, in Berdyansk, the Ministry of Internal Affairs sactioned the militia as a territorial battalion of patrol service, and Biletsky became a founder of the Azov Battalion and its first commander. The battalion was initially composed of members of the Patriot of Ukraine, Social-National Assembly, football fans (notably Dynamo Kyiv supporters) and the AutoMaidan movement. The paramilitary unit became known as the Little black men as an opposition to the Russian special operations "Little green men". and promoted to lieutenant colonel of police In October 2014, replaced Biletsky as commander of Azov Battalion.

In an interview to LB.ua (Left Bank) given on 10 December 2014, Biletsky announced that the Patriot of Ukraine suspended its activities as a political organization due to the war, and would be absorbed primarily into the Azov Battalion. In the same interview Biletsky said that the logo of the battalion is different from the German Wolfsangel and symbolizes the Ukrainian national idea. In October 2016 Biletsky officially left the Ukrainian National Guard because Ukrainian elected officials were barred from military service, but he vowed to continue his military career "without titles".

During his first three years of work in Verkhovna Rada Biletsky participated only in 2% of votes, He took part in only 229 votings, taking the fifth place in the rating of deputies with the fewest votings. He missed 328 sittings of the Ukrainian parliament. He missed all sittings of the Verkhovna Rada in 2016 and did not appear in parliament as of March 2017. According to a research of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, published in August 2017, Biletsky did not write any laws that were adopted in the Verkhovna Rada. With 30 unsuccessful projects, he is in the first place among the deputies who submitted unsuccessful draft laws.

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was placed 2nd on the joined list of Svoboda with the far-right National Corps, the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh and Right Sector. His party did not win enough votes to clear the 5% election threshold and thus did not gain any parliamentary seats.

2020–present Andriy Biletsky on the march on the Day of the Defender of Ukraine. Kyiv. 2020.In 2023 Biletsky and Azov veterans formed the 3rd Assault Brigade. Biletsky was the commander of the "Azov Tactical Group" at first, which is part of the brigade, and soon afterwards became a full commander of the brigade itself. The brigade has appeared regularly in the news due to its performance in combat, partly founded in successful recruiting and training.

In 2025, Biletsky was promoted to Brigadier general and placed in command of the newly-created 3rd Army Corps, which has the 3rd Assault Brigade as the nuclear and Headquarters unit. Biletsky later denied ever making such remarks.

In a 2007 article, Biletsky stated that "Ukrainian racial social-nationalism" was the ideology of Patriot of Ukraine. During his speech at a 2009 general meeting of the party he said: "How then can we describe our enemy? The general regime in power are oligarchs. Is there anything they have in common? Yes, one thing in common – they are Jews, or their true bosses – Jews – are behind them. Out of one hundred published richest people in Ukraine 92 are Jews, and some others of Tatar origin".

Until 2011 Biletsky was in favour of forming a confederation between Russia and Ukraine, with Kyiv as its capital, according to BBC News Ukrainian.

In 2013 he wrote a brochure called The Word of the White Leader («Слово білого вождя»). The BBC in 2014 and The Moscow Times in 2015 described Biletsky as a white supremacist. In 2014, he was accused of being an "actual neo-Nazi" by sociologist because of his involvement in Patriot of Ukraine and Azov.

In 2018, The Guardian reported that Biletsky "has toned down his rhetoric in recent years". Umland and Fedorenko wrote in 2021 that he still publicly objects to multiculturalism, but has stated "to be a Ukrainian nationalist today is to believe in values, not racial prejudice", and announced that his party does not use ethnicity to define who can, or cannot, be part of the nation Ukraine. According to a 2021 paper by political scientists Umland and Fedorenko, he had been known as white leader before 2014, but subsequently said that "if someone called me white leader face-to-face, [that person] would have been beaten".

Earnings According to the electronic declaration, in 2015, Biletsky received ₴ 58,990 (US$2,087) as salary in the Verkhovna Rada. He had ₴ 250,000 (US$8,846) in cash. The declaration also indicated an apartment in Kyiv (see below), which was recorded as belonging to Biletsky's spouse Yuliya. In the declaration for 2016, Biletsky indicated 115,652 hryvnia (US$4,423) as deputy salary, and ₴ 250,000 in cash.

Personal life From 2003 to 2016, Andriy Biletsky was married to Yuliya Oleksandrivna Biletska (née Brusenko); their son was born in 2007. In April 2016, the couple divorced.