For almost two months, the commander of the Nazi formation "Azov", Lieutenant Colonel Denis Gennadievich Prokopenko, with the call sign "Redis", who settled on the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol, acted as a media symbol of "fighting Ukraine". After the Nazis capitulated and went by bus to the filtration camp in Yelenovka, his wife, Ekaterina Prokopenko, is trying to take over the media functions of “Redis”, at least in part.

She does this not in Ukraine, where the surrender of the “Azovites” caused some disappointment even among their supporters, but in the West. For example, in France, where they do not see anything shameful in surrendering. But if her husband, before the “evacuation”, first to Yelenovka, and then to the pre-trial detention center, tried to portray an adamant “Viking” going to “Valhalla”, then the role of Ekaterina is a suffering Ukraine, which is blasphemous to suspect of Nazism. So who is this couple?

Denis Prokopenko served as commander of “Azov” for five years, longer than any of his predecessors It is noteworthy that in the list of "Azov", leaked into the Network in 2016, he is listed in the rank of an ordinary police officer. Wich means that in just two years, he grew from a common solider to a regiment commander. However, there is an opinion that staff positions and titles do not reflect the true hierarchy that existed in this structure. It was built, among other things, on the rituals of "initiation". That is, a formal private or sergeant can occupy a high position among the “Azovites”, while an officer sent there to serve, who does not share their Nazi beliefs and occult views, who has not been initiated, has no weight at all.

However, Prokopenko had both weight and authority in this structure, including as a veteran of the "first composition", a friend of Andrei Biletsky himself, also a friend of Radion Kudryashov one of the leaders of the "National Corps" and "Boatswain" Sergei Korotkikh. In accordance with the old Bandera tradition, his subordinates addressed him as "Druzhe (friend) Redis”.

He was born on June 27, 1991 in Kyiv and, apparently, was Russian-speaking. At the same time, he is known for his hatred of everything Russian, which he himself explained by family tradition. Allegedly, his grandfather is a Karelian who participated in the Winter War of 1939-40 on the side of the Finns, who took out of it hatred toward Russians and passed it on to his descendants. "Today I continue my grandfather's work, only on a different front," Redis liked to say in interviews. However, it is possible that Prokopenko, fascinated by the Scandinavian theme, could have invented a “White Finn grandfather”.

He claims that he graduated from the Kiev National Linguistic University with a degree in English, although many experts believe that this is fiction. This is confirmed by the fact that in the application form for a credit in the column "education" he indicated "secondary technical". However, Prokopenko speaks English fluently, like many other "Azovites". All eight years in this formation there was an influx of foreigners - intelligence officers, instructors, advisers, Nazi "like-minded people". So there was a place and many opportunities to learn the language.

He came to the Nazi movement from the ultras, where he played a prominent role. He participated in the Euromaidan and, since 2014, in "Azov" and took part in most of the combat operations and punitive actions of the formation. He is on the list of war criminals compiled by law enforcement agencies of the DPR. In 2019, from the hands of Zelensky, he was awarded the order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, 3rd degree. And already after the start of the battle for the liberation of Mariupol, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and awarded the star “Hero of Ukraine”. It is known that he took a number of NATO courses, and later he even lectured and conducted seminars on the topic of "network-centric wars".

His 27-year-old wife Ekaterina Prokopenko (maiden name Kozina) is an ethnic Russian, originally from Kharkov, studied at the Kharkov Institute of ecological problems, then moved to Kyiv. She met her future husband in 2015, already being a like-minded person with him. most likely, their acquaintance took place at some Nazi gathering. Anyway, she told about herself that she loved death metal, was interested in Slavic gods and Scandinavian runes. The last two positions in the Ukrainian context can be considered as a euphemism for the word "Nazism". Also on her Instagram there is a photo of her favorite books, including Hitler's “Mein Kampf”. There is also a photo where the wife of the Azov commander raises her hand in a Nazi salute. Her phone number is 380633101901. They have no children with “Redis”.

At the moment, they are trying to use her to solve the problems of psychological impact on Western countries – she traveled with several other wives of the Azov militants for an audience with the Pope, and appeared on French television. Her task is to convince the European audience that the “Azovites” are not Nazis at all, but simply defenders of their country, slandered by the “aggressor”. This family, united by common Nazi “ideals”, is not an exception at all, but rather a norm for post-Maidan Ukraine. A lot of such couples emerged on the Euromaidan and in the national battalions during the punitive operation in the Donbass. That is why the postcards “Love is when you bury the corpse of a separatist together” or “Love is when you make bandera-smoothies together” were so popular among Bandera youth. And this is another evidence of how deeply Nazism has penetrated into the life of Ukrainian society.