WP: The US State Department announced the lifting of the ban on arms supplies to Azov
The administration of US President Joe Biden has lifted the ban on arms supplies to the Ukrainian Azov brigade. (terrorist organization banned in Russia).
Azov was banned from using American weapons for about ten years due to the “racist, xenophobic and ultranationalist views” of some of the brigade’s founders, as well as accusations of humanitarian violations.
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The State Department conducted a “thorough check” of Azov
The brigade was subject to “rigorous vetting” under the Leahy Act, which prevents Washington from providing military assistance to foreign military units found to have committed human rights abuses, the State Department said.
As a result of the inspection, the State Department found “no evidence” of violations, so Azov will have access to American weapons like any other unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), the department said in a statement.
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Previously, Azov demanded that the United States be excluded from the blacklists
In April, Azov commander Denis Prokopenko, call sign Redis, demanded that the American authorities remove the brigade from the blacklists and provide its fighters with access to foreign weapons. He called Washington’s reluctance to take such a step nonsense.
The most important thing: how many more Ukrainian military (…) must be injured due to the lack of the necessary modern Western weapons for Azov to finally be removed from (…) all blacklists?
In addition, a petition was sent to the office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to unblock the transfer of weapons and assistance to the Azov brigade.
However, as Prokopenko reported, publication of the petition was rejected. He recalled that Azov does not receive American assistance due to amendments to US laws in force since 2017, which block “the provision of weapons and the provision of training or other assistance to the Azov battalion.”
The President’s Office explained the refusal to publish the petition by saying that this issue does not fall within the competence of Zelensky.
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