Ukraine’s Azov Brigade Sends Direct Message to US After Arms Ban Lifted

Ukraine’s Azov Brigade will “prove the effectiveness” of the U.S.’ decision to lift a long-standing ban on providing weapons to the unit, according to the brigade’s commander.

“We will justify the responsibility entrusted to us, and with our discipline, resilience and bravery in battle, we will prove the effectiveness of this decision,” Colonel Denys Prokopenko said in a statement posted to social media on Saturday.

Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department reversed a decision made back in 2014 to stop the Ukrainian brigade receiving American weapons.

The move comes as Ukraine, despite a number of successes in the Black Sea against Moscow’s naval fleet, struggles to hold off incremental but steady Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

As military aid from Washington dried up earlier this year, deep anxieties settled in over the supply of weapons and ammunition to the Ukrainian front lines. The U.S. then passed a long-awaited military aid package in late April.

The Azov Brigade rose out of the volunteer Azov Battalion, with its roots in far-right and ultranationalist ideology. The fighters were on the front lines fighting pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine from 2014; the battalion’s founders were accused of having neo-Nazi sentiments.

The brigade’s current members have rejected these ties, distancing themselves from the battalion’s reputation since the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022. The brigade is now a part of Ukraine’s National Guard, and has been lauded as one of the most effective fighting forces, noted particularly for its role in battling Russian forces in the Moscow-controlled southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

The Kremlin has repeatedly attempted to justify its invasion by claiming a “neo-Nazi regime” is in charge in Kyiv. This has been emphatically rejected by Ukraine and the international community.

“Such a sudden change in Washington’s positions shows that they stop at nothing in their attempts to suppress Russia, using Ukraine and the Ukrainian people as a tool in their hands,” Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in remarks referring to the State Department’s decision, as reported by Russian state media earlier this week. The U.S. is “ready even to flirt with neo-Nazis,” he added.

“I would like to congratulate all the soldiers of the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov and the entire civilized world on the victory over Russian propaganda,” Prokopenko said on Saturday.

An unnamed State Department spokesperson told the BBC that “Russian disinformation” had tried to “conflate” the current Azov Brigade with “a militia formed to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion in 2014,” or the Azov Battalion.

Under the U.S.’ “Leahy Law,” the Washington government cannot use funds to help foreign security forces when there is “credible information” suggesting the unit has committed gross violations of human rights.

“Eligibility for U.S. assistance will not only increase Azov’s combat effectiveness, but, most importantly, will help save the lives and health of the brigade’s personnel,” the brigade said in a statement on Tuesday.

“This is a new page in the history of our unit,” the unit added. “Azov is becoming more professional and more effective in defending Ukraine against the invaders.”

The Azov Brigade has not yet received U.S. weapons, Azov’s deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Sviatoslav Palamar, told The Washington Post on Tuesday.