The State Division has allowed the members of the infamous Azov Brigade to make use of US-supplied weapons
The State Division has allowed the supply of US weapons to Ukraine’s Azov Brigade, whose members brazenly espouse ultranationalist and neo-Nazi views. The circulation of arms had beforehand been restricted because of the unit’s ties to hateful ideology.
“After thorough overview, Ukraine’s twelfth Particular Forces Azov Brigade handed Leahy vetting as carried out by the US Division of State,” the company stated in an announcement to the Washington Submit on Monday, referring to the laws that bans army help to models that have been implicated in human rights violations. The State Division added that it discovered “no proof” of such violations dedicated by Azov.
Azov was based as a volunteer battalion in 2014 and took part within the struggle with the breakaway republics of Donbass after they selected to secede from Ukraine within the wake of the Western-backed coup in Kiev. The unit’s core fighters have been lively and former members of ultranationalist and neo-Nazi teams, in addition to far-right soccer hooligans.
The unit’s major co-founder Andrey Biletsky was a member of a white supremacist group within the 2000s. He has since toned down his rhetoric and denied ties to neo-Nazism. Nonetheless, many Azov fighters proceed to sport Nazi tattoos and memorabilia related to the Third Reich. The brigade continues to make use of banners with the Wolfsangel image, which was utilized by a number of German divisions throughout World Battle II, together with the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.
The unit was integrated into Ukraine’s Nationwide Guard in 2015 and has considerably grown in measurement over time.
In 2018, Congress banned the supply of arms to the Azov Brigade, citing its ties to neo-Nazi ideology. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, stated on the time that “white supremacy and neo-Nazism are unacceptable and don’t have any place in our world.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which combats anti-Semitism and displays hate teams, described the unit in 2019 as a “Ukrainian extremist group” with ties to US-based neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen and comparable white supremacist actions in Europe. The ADL has since modified its view, nevertheless, writing in an e-mail to The Grayzone information outlet in late 2022 that it not thought of Azov because the “far-right group it as soon as was.”
Many Azov fighters surrendered to Russian troops in the course of the siege of the town of Mariupol in 2022. Moscow has accused the members of the unit of struggle crimes, together with torture and execution of civilians.
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