ROBERT PARRY: When US House Saw Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis
ROBERT PARRY: When US House Saw Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis
The U.S. government and media think Nazis in Ukraine are a myth. It wasn’t always the case, as Robert Parry reported in 2015.
US House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine
Exclusive: The U.S. House of Representatives has admitted an ugly truth that the U.S. mainstream media has tried to hide from the American people: that the post-coup regime in Ukraine has relied heavily on Nazi storm troopers to carry out its bloody war against ethnic Russians, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Special to Consortium News
June 12, 2015
Last February, when ethnic Russian rebels were closing in on the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, The New York Times rhapsodically described the heroes defending the city and indeed Western civilization the courageous Azov battalion facing down barbarians at the gate. What the Times didn’t tell its readers was that these “heroes” were Nazis, some of them even wearing Swastikas and SS symbols.
“….
Yet, on June 10, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act from Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Michigan, and Ted Yoho, R-Florida that would block U.S. training of the Azov battalion and would prevent transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to fighters in Iraq and Ukraine.
“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, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions,” said Conyers on Thursday.
He described Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a 1,000-man volunteer militia of the Ukrainian National Guard that Foreign Policy magazine has characterized as “openly neo-Nazi” and “fascist.” And Azov is not some obscure force. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who oversees Ukraine’s armed militias, announced that Azov troops would be among the first units to be trained by the 300 U.S. military advisers who have been dispatched to Ukraine in a training mission codenamed “Fearless Guardian.”
[Later, under pressure from the Pentagon in December 2015 the amendment barring funding to Azov was removed from the 2016 House Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2685).]….”
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