There is no Azov Battalion shelling minorities in DonBAss Sing Se

It’d be wonderful if all the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis were crushed in this invasion — it’d be the only good thing to come out of this.

However, it’s equally clear to me Putin doesn’t actually care. After all, Russia employs its own Neo-Nazis as special forces…

Perhaps Russia should deNazify itself first to gain credibility on this

Interesting point. Personally I want Ukraine to become a neutral country that's the buffer zone between Russia and NATO that both sides kinda want. America pulls out it's Nazis and Putin just plain pulls out. The Ukranian people aren't meant to be cannon fodder for America to wage a proxy war against Russia. That's including the east ukraine donbass region and the people being persecuted by Azov Battalion.

Here’s more context. Azov didn’t exist prior to Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine’s east in 2014.

Conflict fuels political extremism, and Ukraine is no exception. However Russia is the aggressor here, no question.

There's one thing we're going to have to disagree, good sir.
Russia invading didn't create Azov Battalion as a response. America did a coup and installed the Nazi infested puppet regime at the time. I'm sure a lot of the other stuff you put out there is pretty legit, or worth looking into, but I'm fairly convinced America installed the Azov Nazi regime. It mirrors too closely what our government did with creating ISIS to fight Assad.
Azov Battalion is not organic.
Azov Battalion is the only military faction in the world that is openly endorsing of Nazis. Putin is AN aggressor, but saying he is THE aggressor, and the only one? And then saying "no question" after that? I'm sorry. That's the same type of ultra nationalistic talk that got us in wars in the middle east, bombing everyone but the people who did 9/11. We didn't find any wmds and look what happened in Afghanistan. Now those people want us to remake the same mistake in East Europe.
And I say this as somebody who has served in the American military (non combat, intel, but still).
To me there is no *the* aggressor, and there's plenty of question.
That, and the people of Donbass have been suffering a lesser genocide for 8 years since we installed that NeoNazi government via a coup. The government we overthrew was corrupt and authoritarian, yes, but it was democratically elected, and not nearly as bad as the Azov Battalion who not only give Donbass the Gaza treatment, but do atrocious attacks on Romanians, Jews, LGBT and women's rights groups. They've been recorded committing rape, torture, genocide, they burned some peaceful protesters alive in a building and there's footage out there somewhere of them crucifying a man (similar to what our CIA and Mossad trained ISIS to do).

Maidan Square wasn’t an American-backed coup, but rather an organic democratic uprising of Ukrainians against a corrupt, Russia-backed autocrat who promoted policies the majority of Ukrainians didn’t like.

Putin couldn’t stand the pro-Western outlook of Ukraine after his puppet was removed, so in 2014 he started punishing Ukraine by annexing Crimea and aiding a separatist movement in Donbas, then most dramatically escalated this year with a full-scale invasion.

Ukraine isn’t a pawn in a chess-game, nor is a part of the Western or Eastern spheres. It’s a country that has the right to choose its own destiny.

If you truly believe that, then you’ll condemn Russia’s aggression unequivocally.