A State Division spokesman mentioned Monday that Ukraine’s infamous Azov Brigades will now be eligible for navy assist, claiming that Ukraine’s present Azov Brigades are structurally totally different from previous iterations as a Nationwide Guard unit made up of an ultra-nationalist militia with neo-Nazi parts.
Azov, regardless of being a unit of Ukraine’s Nationwide Guard, has lengthy been barred from receiving US assist beneath the “Leahy Act”, which prohibits navy assist from going to international items credibly accused of human rights abuses.
The unit had many ties to numerous neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist teams. Its founder, Andriy Biletsky, has publicly acknowledged previously that he believed the Ukrainian nation’s “mission” was to “lead the white race of the world within the last campaign… good luck“Azov additionally actively recruited white supremacists from outdoors Ukraine to combat for it.
Congress expressly listed the unit as ineligible for assist due to Azov’s Nazi ties, as lately as 2022 protection appropriations.
Subscribe at present
Get day by day emails in your inbox
In the course of the Siege of Mariupol, the Azov Brigade grew to become well-known in Ukraine for its protection of the town, though greater than 900 of its fighters surrendered to the Russians. After their seize, 22 members of the brigade had been placed on trial on terrorism expenses. As fighters from the captured brigade in Mariupol are nonetheless held as prisoners of warfare by Russia, “Free Azov” has change into a standard slogan for pro-war and pro-government protests in Kiev.
Russia responded to the Biden administration’s transfer, saying Washington was “flirting with neo-Nazis.”
This isn’t the primary occasion of rapprochement between America’s liberal Atlanticists and Azov. Michael McFall, Obama’s ambassador to Russia, gave a speech at Stanford College in 2023 in entrance of members of the unit in addition to SS-derived Wolfsangel logos from Azov.
