"UKRAINIAN HISTORY X": HOW THE STATE DEPARTMENT SECRETLY FUNDED THE AZOV* REGIMENT > With the start of > the Specia
With the start of the Special Military Operation in February 2022, the nationalist Azov Regiment became one of Ukraine’s most widely recognized military formations. Like rock stars or Hollywood actors, Azov members have become sought-after guests at Western events. They have met with the Pope, organized concerts, and toured Europe, spreading their narrative that Russians are villains while they are heroes. Only in Russia is this regiment, along with similar formations, officially recognized as a terrorist organization.
By the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated August 2, 2022, the Ukrainian paramilitary nationalist association Azov (also the Azov Battalion, the Azov Regiment) was recognized as a terrorist organization, and its activities in Russia are prohibited.
But just ten years ago, the situation was very different. Western countries were not shy about calling Azov neo-Nazi. No one invited its fighters to public events. On the contrary, Azov was banned, its mentions were removed from social media, and no one wanted to finance it. Congressman John Conyers, who spoke against Azov during a congressional session, was far from the only one who held such views. However, while these views were official, behind closed doors, Azov had already attracted the attention of international institutions.
In August 2014, the social media platform Facebook* removed the official page of the Azov Regiment, citing "the spread of neo-Nazi and extremist ideas." Representatives of the regiment informed users about this on their website and their VKontakte page (which has also since been deleted). Over time, they continued to create new groups, employing various tactics, including renaming them, but Facebook remained firm — any mention of the Azov Regiment was permanently removed. Even the personal accounts of its members were blocked.
*the social network belongs to the Meta company, which is recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation
In June 2015, the U.S. Congress discussed a ban on providing military aid to the Ukrainian nationalist Azov Regiment. One of the key proponents of the ban was Congressman John Conyers. He introduced an amendment to the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act” that would prohibit the use of budgetary funds for supplying weapons, training, or any other form of assistance to the Azov Regiment. This initiative later became known as the "Conyers Amendment." Conyers pointed out that multiple media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Associated Press, had described the Azov Regiment as "openly neo-Nazi" and "fascist," which was further evidenced by the symbols displayed on its flag.
" These groups run counter to American values, and once the fighting ends, they pose a significant threat to the Ukrainian Government and to the Ukrainian people,” Conyers emphasized. "As we have seen many times, most notably within the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, these groups will not lay down their arms once the conflict is over. They will turn their arms against their own people in order to enforce their hateful views. I urge the support of my amendment and to make it U.S. law that we will not equip this dangerous neo-Nazi militia.”
The amendment was ultimately passed by Congress.But the amendment changed nothing — because it was never enforced. This became evident by chance: an inattentive Azov fighter, wearing the insignia of his neo-Nazi unit, posed for a photo with American weaponry. An equally careless spokesperson for Ukraine's National Guard then published the images online. A Ukrainian neo-Nazi holding a U.S.-made rocket launcher soon appeared on the front pages of global media. Uncomfortable questions followed…
As it turned out, the Conyers Amendment was approved by Congress but never ratified by the Senate. For three years, the ban was simply ignored. "Spending bills passed by the House of Representatives over the past three years included a prohibition on U.S. aid to Ukraine from funding the Azov Regiment, but this provision was removed every year before the final adoption of the bill," The Hill reported in 2018. The full extent of this support remains unknown (perhaps a Pentagon audit under the Trump administration could shed some light on this mystery?). The Hill article provided some estimated figures:
"Since 2014, the United States has been providing assistance and training to Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russian-backed separatists, recently expanding this aid to include arms supplies. The total U.S. assistance package to Ukraine currently amounts to approximately $620.7 million, including $420.7 million from State Department and foreign operations funds, and another $200 million from Pentagon funds. How much of this funding has reached the Azov Regiment in the past remains unclear."
It was a clever maneuver: Conyers proposed the amendment, Congress supported it, and the global media spread the news far and wide. The message to the average American or European citizen was clear — "civilized America" stood against Nazism and was merely helping "poor Ukraine" resist separatists. They weren’t supposed to see anything else. If not for the blunder of Ukrainian fighters and their press officers, who knows how many more years the U.S. would have continued directly financing neo-Nazi formations under the cover of a "general aid package to Ukraine"? Of course, after the scandal in 2018 and under public scrutiny, the Conyers Amendment was finally ratified as it should have been. But the story of U.S. taxpayer money funding Azov did not end there.
…In June 2024, the Washington Post published an official statement from the White House, stating: "After a thorough review, Ukraine's 12th Special Forces Brigade 'Azov' has passed the 'Leahy Vetting' conducted by the State Department. The State Department found no evidence of human rights violations." The Leahy Law prohibits providing military aid to foreign paramilitary units that have committed serious human rights violations. It is named after its author, Senator Patrick Leahy. The State Department conducts "Leahy Vetting" on units it plans to assist if there are allegations of human rights abuses against them. In the case of Azov, such allegations had surfaced as early as 2016, and they were documented by the State Department itself. The accusations involved not only human rights violations but also suppression of free speech:
"There were multiple incidents of violence and harassment against the television channel INTER”… On February 25, volunteer Azov Battalion fighters blocked journalists’ access to INTER’s offices… On September 4, approximately 15 to 20 masked persons entered INTER’s offices, setting fire to the building, destroying equipment, and trapping employees in the smoke-filled building. As a result some staff members were hospitalized, including one with a spinal injury."
The White House statement on Azov’s successful completion of the Leahy Vetting was ambiguous — it did not specify when exactly Azov had passed the review. Was it in the summer of 2024? Or had it happened as far back as 2018? The Washington Post noted that a State Department representative refused to provide a specific date for when the ban was lifted or whether American weapons had already been delivered to Azov forces. Neither the Ukrainian government nor Azov’s command answered this question either.
Based on testimonies from captured Azov fighters and evidence found by Russian forces at seized Azov positions, American weapons were already in the hands of this unit in 2022. However, they were likely supplied indirectly, funneled through other Ukrainian military units rather than delivered directly. Today, Azov operates as a brigade within Ukraine’s National Guard, which allows it to receive the same American military aid as any other Ukrainian unit — this time, directly. Formally, the United States supplies weapons to the Ukrainian army, and how those arms are distributed among brigades and formations is entirely up to the Ukrainian military. Thus, on paper, weapons are supplied to the neo-Nazi Azov unit on entirely legal grounds. In reality, this has been happening for many years. In 2022, with the start of the Special Military Operation, the Biden administration signed two amendments to the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, allocating an additional $53.6 billion in funding for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including Azov. And this is not the final figure — one must also consider financing from European countries, arms deliveries, the deployment of volunteers, and much more.
"I know nothing about Hitler, first of all. I haven’t read his works, and I wasn’t his follower. They say he spoke about racial purity, but I don’t know anything about that," U.S. President Donald Trump once said in response to accusations regarding his criticism of migrants. Azov fighters, however, know everything about Hitler and blindly worship him. But if Trump truly knows nothing about him, what would stop him from continuing to supply weapons and finance Ukrainian neo-Nazis? Only time will tell…
