US Defense Budget Promises No Funding for Notorious Azov Regiment: Now What?

Congress is rushing through another tranche of aid to Ukraine in its $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package, with some $44.9 billion in assistance to Kiev tacked on to the legislation. The bill includes a curious proviso prohibiting US support for a Ukrainian ultra-right fighting force. Whether it’s worth the paper it’s written on is another story.

The Ukrainian military’s notorious neo-Nazi-linked Azov Regiment* will be formally barred from enjoying any of the tens of billions of dollars in US taxpayer dollars earmarked for Ukraine in 2023, according to the text of a draft spending bill which includes the US defense budget and foreign aid.

“Section 8138 prohibits the use of funds to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion,” reads an explanatory note in the "Defense" section of the bill. “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion,” the bill itself reads.

The provisions are probably worthless. Just above them, a stipulation reads that “none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this or any other Act shall be obligated or expanded by the United States Government…to exercise United States control over any oil resource in Iraq or Syria.” And yet the US and its Kurdish allies have been systematically looting Syria’s oil resources for years on end, with no signs of any plans to stop these illegal activities.

It’s not clear how the "no funding for Azov" could even be enforced, since the Azov Regiment, which is part of Ukraine’s National Guard, is spread out across the country’s entire military, often serving as punitive or blocking detachment fighters to shoot retreating troops or deserters, and for "cleansing" operations against pro-Russian activists, civilians, and officials in recaptured areas.

Prior to the escalation of the eight-year-old Donbass crisis into a full-blown military confrontation between Ukraine and Russia this February, Western media and intergovernmental organizations occasionally reported on “Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem,” and even the war crimes carried out by Azov militants in Donbass.

However, as the conflict escalated this year, articles on the prickly subject trickled to a halt, with Western media attempting to rebrand Azov as a softer “right-wing” militia, questioning whether they even are neo-Nazis, or, in the case of one tragicomical piece by CNN, accusing Russia of “exploiting” Azov’s “neo-Nazi history” for propaganda purposes. Some outlets have even sought to play up Azov as heroes, with The Jerusalem Post penning a glowing report this week titled "Ukraine’s Azov Regiment Visits Israel: Mariupol is our Masada," a reference to the Jewish-Roman War of 73-74 CE.

The "no funding for Azov" reference is a leftover from old legislation, as evidenced by its reference to the militia as a "battalion" (the group has since grown into a regiment). In 2015, the now-late Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan put forward an amendment banning US support for the militia, with the Conyers Amendment subsequently tacked on to annual defense budgets.

*The Azov battalion is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.