The State Department announced Monday that it has formally lifted a ban on arming and training the Azov Brigade, an infamous Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit.
The Azov Brigade celebrated the news, saying the “eligibility for US assistance will not only increase Azov’s combat effectiveness.”
“This is a new page in the history of our unit. Azov is becoming more professional and more effective in defending Ukraine against the invaders,” Azov wrote on X.
The Azov Brigade was founded as a militia in 2014, known as the Azov Battalion, to fight Ukrainian separatists in the Donbas and was later absorbed by Ukraine’s National Guard.
The military unit’s founder, Andriy Biletsky, is known for his neo-Nazi and white supremacist rhetoric. In 2014, Biletsky was also the leader of an ultra-nationalist organization known as the Social National Assembly (SNA), which dissolved in 2015.
BBC reported in 2014 that the SNA wrote in online publications that it aimed “to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital.” The group also sought “to punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man.”
Biletsky was elected to the Ukrainian parliament in 2014 and later left Azov due to a ban on elected officials serving in the military. He became the leader of the National Corps Party in 2016, which he still leads today, and lost his seat in parliament in 2019.
Supporters of the Azov Brigade have tried to rebrand the military unit and distance it from Biletsky. But the regiment still uses the Wolfsangel symbol, which is associated with neo-Nazi ideology, and its current leader has been associated with the wider Azov movement going back to 2014.
“The current leader of the Azov Regiment, Denis ‘Redis’ Prokopenko, is part of the core of the Azov movement since 2014, and served under commanders who went on to lead the Azov movement political and street wings,” Oleksiy Kuzmenko, a Ukrainian-American journalist told CNN in 2022.
US assistance to Azov was banned by an amendment to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. “White supremacy and neo-Nazism are unacceptable and have no place in our world,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said in 2018 when the bill became law. “I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the US from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine.”
The State Department claimed on Monday that Azov passed vetting under the Leahy Law, which prohibits military aid to military units that have committed human rights abuses. “After thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the US Department of State,” the State Department said.
US military equipment has ended up in the hands of other neo-Nazi-linked groups in Ukraine, including the Russian Volunteer Corps, a militia made up of pro-Ukraine Russian-born fighters, some being Azov veterans. The RVC has used US armored vehicles in raids on Russian territory.
Remember this?
JANUARY 14, 2016
Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill
Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress has stripped the spending bill of an amendment that prevented funds from falling into the hands of Ukrainian neo-fascist groups.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/congress-has-removed-a-ban-on-funding-neo-nazis-from-its-year-end-spending-bill/
If this were WWII, Biden would be funding the Azov Battalion's invasion of Russia. That would make Russia stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Russia would have to fight the Allies and Axis Powers.
Except that UK and US funded Hitler to fight Soviet Union. Most of Europe was Hitler’s ally. But Hitler had his iwn ideas, and double crossed his funders, once he got Vatican support. And the Western Allies were quite content to ket k pummel Russia. Russia barely got out of civil war between Trocki and Stalin, andcwas not ready. Russia tried stalling by signing a deal with Hitler on non-violation of Polish , or else war. Hitler did not honor tge deal, and Russia was facing the full brunt of Hilers army and all European allies. Today, we do not nentiin that all European states contributed to Hitler’s effort and sent soldiers to the dreaded eastern front. Even when withdrawung, SS Army had support from all Baltic.
There were no civil wars between between Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky was ousted from USSR peacefully. Of course, Stalin killed him later but hardly you can call it a war.
European fascist crusade against Russia in 1941 was not only about the robbery of Russian resources, it was also a crusade against communists.
The current crusade against Russia is about the robbery only.
Certainly one way to get rid of Nazis, let them fight the Russians.
True. But the main message is it shows the desperation of the US that now Rep. Rohit Khanna is going to be proven wrong and that the US government sees it differently so that white supremacy and neo-Nazism are acceptable and <i>do</i> have a place in our world, as was sort of formalized in Democrat legislation previously. But the prohibition on supporting Nazi's was merely performative in nature and even that erroneously as it now turns out.
So then are the Canadians just trendsetters and we are going to see some last surviving genuine Nazi of their golden era receiving a minutes long standing ovation in Congress too?
I mean they are already smitten with genocidal maniacs, so it seems just natural progression.
And "are we are going to see some last surviving genuine Nazi of their golden era receiving a minutes long standing ovation in Congress too?…"
No, but we are going to witness the feting of a war criminal during the upcoming extravaganza put on by the "People's" House, while Harris will have another opportunity to wave a flag up on the podium, like the cheerleader she has become.
One did receive an ovation. In Canada.
The best way to get rid of Ukrainians, convert them to Nazism and push them against Russians.
Tragic – the GIs of the greatest generation look on with shame
I hope so but doubt they would allow themselves to feel it.
Hmmm, I'm sure you know about Operation Paperclip and the myriad other ways the post WW2 "greatest generation" rehabilitated actual Nazis for the fight against the SU?
So this is par for the course for us here, no?
No. Don't put the collaborationist label on the GIs who fought against the Nazis. That's gross.
Exactly. That was Allen f*cking Dulles, also the mastermind behind the coup in 1963. The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Thank you.
You're right. Soldiers should only be accused of crimes they themselves may have done and not their leadership.
I guess my beef is more with the veneration of the "greatest generation" as a whole and not the GG GIs in particular.
My father would be enraged. U.S. Army. Fought in the ME, North Africa, France, Germany.
Delivered to Ukraine munitions are distributed among all Ukrainian units. Azov was aways equipped better than the others.
Exactly. Grandstanding move. Blinken is just trying to be more hateful and rub it in Russia's face. But still remarkable given the ideology.
Blinken Idiot.
Worse.
The US is proving itself to the world.
As if we really have to, given that people all over the world fear us.
Even the Zionists are happy to team up with these Nazis, and why not now that they are different from them in name only in their quest for racial purity & segregation.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab683947752d06fda8a9b84f65488b3a68b3eff02bc21089c88bc1a2005c1b60.jpg
How soon we forget.
“the Leahy Law, which prohibits military aid to military units that have committed human rights abuses.”
That law was never applied to Israel why not the azovs.
Never fully applied to us.
Ok ok. I get it. i turn 66 this year, raised in the usa and i actually https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd2a92fd29c82c559429c85a579f2f3f248c1f3c7d3fbb0a381c3989c87b2168.png read books growing up so i get it.
Its ALL; My Lai
Arming and training has been going on since 2014… Now, they're in open…!
I wonder if this is CYA. As I watched this war each day, it was evident that Azov was fully armed. I think it unlikely that this was done without our knowledge.
Now that Azov is facing deactivation due to heavy losses, it may not matter anymore.
Normandy and Nazis. Arm nazis to fight Russians. Feels like NATO has inherited Third Reich. Mire and more obvious.
The Fourth Reich.
Mr. Drumpf voiced the words: United Reich. I that the direction we are headed? Or,are we there?
The State Department claimed on Monday that Azov passed vetting under the Leahy Law, which prohibits military aid to military units that have committed human rights abuses. “After thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the US Department of State,” the State Department said.
Why do I feel the same as I do when Israel does their own investigations into their own atrocities?
So, Mr. Representatives, HOW did they pass the vetting???? Strangely, I don't read anything from Israel objecting to the Jew in Ukraine utilizing NAZIs.
Who cares about Nazis? Old Lindsey Graham said it — Ukraine has trillions of rare earth mineraks and metals, US shoukd grab it so it does not get into Russian ir Chinese hands.
People who don't know you might easily misconstrue your point in this post.
= = = =
I wondered how Putin planned to de-Nazify Ukraine. I did not expect to see him do it on the battlefield. But lately, that has been happening a lot.
The denazification is important for all humankind, not only for Russia. The absolute evil must be destroyed. It would be even better if Nazism is destroyed together with those who are promoting it for their geopolitical purpose.
Unfortunately for American oligarchs, most of those natural wealth are in regions which already reintegrated into Russia.
Guys like Lindsay G. and Marco R. are at least honest about those US nefarious schemes and goals. Or maybe they just think nobody is smart enough to figure them out.
wow suddenly Nazis are the good guys ?
is that really how far we have fallen ?
WTF is wrong with us.
what
This has been going on since the late 1940s.
Operation Paperclip
The US has never had a problem with fascists. Fascism is just a version of capitalism, after all.
Nazism is much more evil than just fascism.
The US elite loves fascism.
In WWII my father fought the NAZIs.
But but but… Zelensky is Jewish!
Isn't it weird that so many people accepted this notion without question?
Yes, he is. The same as Satanyahu. So what?
It's not as if the stuff wasn't funneling to them from the Zelensky government anyway. Azov and Right Sector get their pick of the stuff coming in. The faux "free russian legion", a creation of the Ukrainian security service, containing many neo-NZs including ex-Azov members, was fully equipped with US armored vehicles – and they're not even part of the Ukrainian military (officially).
US lifts ban with full-throated support for their favorite clan among the Ukrainian nationalists (kinda reminds me of our love affair with the war criminals in Tel Aviv).
America is the new Nazi Germany.
I'll look around, and not find, a few Usual Commenting Suspects who have vehemently insisted "there's no neo-Nazis in Ukrainian (gov't, military, society)" here to either (continue to) refute the facts OR to move goalposts & try to claim "Azov isn't what it used to be, SEE, they've CHANGED."