The Ukrainian military’s Azov Division is famous for promoting Nazism and Nazi symbols.
Back in 2019, 40 Democrats signed a letter saying they condemned the Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine.
Kanekoa The Great dug up this letter from 2019.
On October 16, 2019, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee’s counterterrorism subpanel, Rep. Max Rose (NY), led a letter signed by forty Democrats asking the State Department why they had not placed Ukraine’s Azov Battalion on the U.S. list of “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs).
In the letter, the lawmakers compared the Azov Battalion to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and discussed how, Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shooter, who massacred fifty-one people in 2019, had been radicalized by the “ultranationalist militia organization” which “openly welcomes neo-Nazis into its ranks”.
“For Example, the Azov Battalion is a well-known ultranationalist militia organization in Ukraine that openly welcomes neo-Nazis into its ranks. The group is so well-known, in fact, that the 115th Congress of the United States stated in its 2018 omnibus spending bill that ‘none of the funds made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.’ The United Nations has chronicled human rights abuses and incidents of torture in this group’s relatively short history. Despite these facts, Azov has been recruiting, radicalizing, and training American citizens for years according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Christchurch, New Zealand massacre was a turning point for counterterrorism efforts. In his manifesto, the shooter claimed he had trained with the Azov Battalion in Ukraine, and he routinely wore a neo-Nazi symbol associated with them. Both the Poway, CA and El Paso, TX shooters said they were directly influenced by the terrorism committed at Christchurch. The link between Azov and acts of terror in America is clear.”
The letter was signed by prominent Democrats such as Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, Rep. Jim Cooper, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. Ro Khanna, and Rep. Al Green.
Read the rest here.
And here are the 40 Democrats who signed on to the letter.
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But this week Joe Biden lifted restrictions on arming the Azov Battalion in Ukraine.
Via The National Pulse.
Joe Biden has lifted restrictions on arming the Azov Battalion, a Neo-Nazi Ukrainian military formation founded by a politician who believes it is the Ukrainian nation’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans]”.
“This is a new page in our unit’s history,” Azov bragged in a statement on the policy change. “Azov is becoming even more powerful, even more professional and even more dangerous for occupiers,” they boasted.
“Obtaining Western weapons and training from the United States will not only increase the combat ability of Azov, but most importantly, contribute to the preservation of the lives and the health of personnel.”
Azov founder Andriy Biletsky, who also leads the National Corps political party, has described his ideology as “Ukrainian racial social-nationalism.” However, he has minimized this rhetoric since the Euromaidan coup and the subsequent onset of hostilities with Russia in 2014. Azov gained prominence as an effective fighting force against Russian and separatist forces, and President Volodymyr Zelensky depended on them to perform much of the fiercest fighting in the early stages of the 2022 invasion, despite his Jewish heritage.
Read the rest here.
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