June 11, 2024
The United States will allow Ukraine’s Azov Brigade to use weapons provided by the U.S. to fight Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. State Department announced on June 10, reversing a long-standing policy.
“After thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the U.S. Department of State,” the department said in a statement obtained by the Washington Post.
The statement refers to the “Leahy Law,” which prohibits the U.S. from providing aid to foreign military units suspected of human rights violations.
The Azov Brigade, part of Ukraine’s National Guard, became a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance through their defense of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in the first three months of the full-scale war. Russian forces eventually took Mariupol in May 2022, capturing the remaining defenders.
The brigade has also sparked controversy over its alleged association with far-right groups, a narrative often exploited in Russian propaganda campaigns.
The U.S. banned the Azov Brigade from using American weapons in 2014 due to the right-wing nationalist views of some of the regiment’s founders. The unit has since become fully incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard and has come under new command.
Following the state department’s announcement, Azov fighters will now have the same access to U.S. arms as other Ukrainian units.
https://kyivindependent.com/us-lifts-weapons-ban-for-ukraines-azov-brigade
About time!
This ban, lasting ten long years, should never have been implemented. It was based on flimsy, dirty ruskie propaganda that made the entire unit look like vicious Nazis, which the loathsome Obumer administration was eating with a shovel. No one in Washington ever made an effort to go directly to Azov to take a look if those rumors were true. Punishing the entire unit like this just because of a couple of morons was never the right thing to do.
Amen.
One of Bidens famous quick decisions…………………………………………
Trump could have reversed this idiotic policy too. How many thousands of patriotic Ukrainians died because of this catering to Moscow?! And how many thousands have been tortured every day since Mariupol fell?
Indeed, Red, the United States has not been a shining example during Ukraine’s troubled times since 2014. Heck, since 1994, when Clinton handed Ukraine a coffin nail to sign the Budapest Memorandum.