Ukraine's Azov Brigade, a unit with a controversial past, can now use American weapons to fight the Russians

• The United States lifted the ban on the Azov Brigade, allowing it to receive shipments of American weapons.

• The Azov Brigade, part of Ukraine's National Guard, has come under scrutiny due to its past ties to the far-right.

• The State Department found no evidence of human rights violations after examining the brigade.

The US State Department announced on Monday that it had lifted a ban on the Azov Brigade, a former Ukrainian militia with an ultranationalist past, allowing the current National Guard unit to receive shipments of US weapons and train .

A State Department spokesperson told the BBC on Tuesday that following an audit of the brigade, there was “no evidence of gross human rights violations.”

The group was created in 2014 under the name Azov Battalion by a figure linked to far-right hate groups in Ukraine. Unit members' alleged ties to the far-right led the United States to bar the group from receiving aid.

Now known as the Azov Brigade, the unit joined the Ukrainian National Guard in 2015. The unit sought to distance itself from its checkered past, but it was also barred from receiving U.S. aid for years, since the passage of an act of Congress in 2018. spending bill.

The State Department rejected Congress' ban and said the Azov Brigade “passed the Leahy test,” referring to the Leahy Act, which prevents the United States from supporting foreign entities that have committed major human rights violations.

“The fact that our allies understand how important it is to help each of these units is another important step on the path of our struggle for independence,” said Ukrainian National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzychuk, to the Washington Post after the State Department's announcement.

The Kremlin used the Azov Brigade as a talking point to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin previously saying its war goals included the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.”

The Azov Brigade claimed that it had evolved from its problematic past and that its leadership had changed since its creation.

In response to the decision on Instagram, the unit wrote that “obtaining Western weapons and training from the United States will not only increase Azov's combat capability, but, more importantly, contribute to preservation of the life and health of personnel. “

“This is a new page in the history of our unit,” the brigade said, adding that “Azov is becoming even more powerful, even more professional and even more dangerous for the occupiers.”

The brigade is closely associated with its important, if costly, defense of Mariupol in 2022, at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where it was ultimately forced to abandon its fight from the steelworks of Azovstal. The unit's soldiers were celebrated as heroes and a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.

Read the original article on Business Insider