US greenlights weapon transfer to Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov battalion
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The State Department claims that it found “no evidence” of human rights violations committed by Azov; WashPo adds that Ukrainian officials saw the ban lift as “a top priority” during their lobbying attempts.
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An officer of 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard writes down coordinates to fire a 155mm self-propelled gun M109 Paladin near Kreminna, Lugansk, on January 28, 2024. (AP)
US weapons are now allowed by the State Department to be delivered to Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Brigade after the transfer was restricted due to its ties to "hateful ideology".
Speaking to The Washington Post, the State Department said, “After a thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the US Department of State,” referring to the legislation that prevents military aid from reaching units involved in human rights violations.
The State Department claimed that it found “no evidence” of human rights violations committed by Azov, and WashPo added that Ukrainian officials saw the ban lift as “a top priority” during their lobbying attempts.
Last year in April, The Washington Post reported, citing a US State Department spokesperson, the US imposing prohibitions on the provision of arms and assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion has had no practical effects due to the group's status quo. The Azov Batallion, according to a State Department spokesperson, is now a "different unit".
Russia's Supreme Court designated Ukraine's Azov Battalion as a terrorist organization in August 2022.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office last year accused Azov militants of employing prohibited means and methods of warfare, including the torture of civilians and the killing of children.
Dark roots
The battalion's symbol is the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel, a black swastika against a yellow background.
Founded by Andriy Biletsky, who vowed to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen,” the group is a pack of neo-Nazis working with the US-backed Ukrainian military.
Read next: 'Israel' welcomes, honors Nazi Azov battalion
It used to be condemned and labeled with Nazism all over it by Western media and the human rights industry – until the war in Ukraine in February 2022. Azov became the Ukrainian military’s defense of Mariupol, and Western media was suddenly inspired to rebrand Azov as a "misunderstood freedom fighter" and use the Kremlin as the anti-thesis.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an international Jewish NGO, refused to condemn the Pentagon's honoring of a veteran of the Azov Battalion who dons Nazi-inspired tattoos.
An email dated November 9 sent by the ADL to The Grayzone, an investigative journalist website, stressed that it does not view the Azov as the “far-right group it once was.”
