For the second year in a row, the House of Representatives has tried and failed to close a loophole that has allowed the neo-Nazi “Azov family” to receive U.S. military support.

For the second year in a row, the House of Representatives has tried and failed to close a loophole that has allowed the neo-Nazi “Azov family” in the armed forces of Ukraine to receive U.S. arms and equipment, and perhaps training and intelligence sharing. Congress banned such support for the “Azov Battalion” in 2018, after another two unsuccessful years of implementation.

Many people, including those who know better, still call it the “Azov Battalion.” By 2015, this neo-Nazi militia joined the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) and became the “Azov Regiment” (two battalions and additional units). Now the “Azov Brigade” (half a dozen battalions and more) leads the “1st Azov Corps” (five other brigades).

First introduced as an amendment by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the longest-serving Black member of Congress, the Azov ban made it into the Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations bills in 2015-16, which both died in the Senate. It was only after Conyers retired that these 23 words were ostensibly enacted as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.” Conyers, “one of the last Civil Rights warriors,” passed away in 2019, and is presumably rolling in his grave.

John Conyers, 2015: “I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion”

“But the ‘Azov Battalion’ hasn’t been a thing for over ten years!” some would say today — and there is the loophole. In order to justify U.S. support for the NGU Azov Brigade (est. 2023), the State Department seemed to argue that the Congressional ban did not apply anymore. “The two units [Azov Battalion/Brigade] are not the same, despite persistent Russian disinformation to conflate them,” according to the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. This was 2024, not long after the Ukrainian foreign ministry and postal service celebrated the Azov Brigade’s “10th anniversary.”

Certain “experts” promote an evidence-free narrative that since 2014, the Azovites in the National Guard have thoroughly “depoliticized” and purged the neo-Nazis, also severing ties with the growing neo-Nazi movement led by Azov veterans and their “White Fuhrer” (Andriy Biletsky). In any case, the alleged “bad apples” who followed Biletsky formed new “Azov” units in 2022, in the Territorial Defense and Special Operations Forces. They largely coalesced as an elite infantry unit: Biletsky’s 3rd Assault Brigade, and now his 3rd Army Corps. Apparently, the Azov movement’s military units outside the National Guard sidestepped the Congressional ban by dropping “Azov” from their name.

3rd Assault Brigade with U.S.-made M1117 armored vehicle

In the summer of 2023, a friend of the Azovites in Congress (Rep. Victoria Spartz, who grew up in Soviet Ukraine) tried to repeal the ban. Another MAGA politician (Andy Ogles from Tennessee) tried to strengthen it by naming the 3rd Assault Brigade and the Azovite “Russian Volunteer Corps” as other groups that should be barred from receiving U.S. support. They both failed, and the original wording remained.

During a 2022 trip to Ukraine, U.S. Rep. Spartz met Dmytro Kukharchuk, a neo-Nazi battalion commander in the 3rd Assault Brigade, according to whom, “Victoria Spartz brought me a gift - the Constitution of the United States with her own signature and a cap with Trump’s signature.”

Somehow, the House of Representatives closed the loophole in its Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 2025, but the bill never made it out of the Senate. A former U.S. intelligence officer, Congressman Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), the son of the former CIA director and Secretary of Defense under Barack Obama, offered an amendment to legalize the loophole, by conditioning U.S. support for the Azovites on approval from the State Department, which the NGU Azov Brigade already received. Panetta’s bipartisan amendment failed, but several members of Congress co-sponsored it.

Dmytro Kukharchuk and Kyrylo Berkal, important neo-Nazis from the 3rd Assault Brigade who met Victoria Spartz in 2022, visited Washington, DC in November 2024 and met Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), one of the co-sponsors of Panetta’s unsuccessful amendment to legalize U.S. support for the Azovites (which was submitted earlier in 2024)

The loophole was closed again in the House version of the 2026 DOD appropriations bill, but the new wording (in italics) was stripped from the recently passed Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026: “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, intelligence, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion*,* the Third Separate Assault Brigade, or any successor organization.” Even the State Department would have to admit that the NGU Azov Brigade is a successor to the Azov Battalion, but not this year.

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