Ukraine's Neo-Nazis Won't Get U.S. Money

Source: Bloomberg

Jun 12, 2015 10:41 AM EDT
By Leonid Bershidsky

It's easy to see why Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, would have a problem with the military unit commanded by Ukrainian legislator Andriy Biletsky: Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Biletsky is a white supremacist.

The House of Representatives has unanimously approved an amendment to the U.S. military budget, proposed by Conyers and Florida Republican Ted Yoho, banning support and training for "the Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary militia 'Azov Battalion.'" Azov was set up in May 2014 to fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

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Now, Conyers and Yoho have almost succeeded in making Azov ineligible for any form of U.S. assistance. "These groups run counter to American values," Conyers told Congress. "And once the fighting ends, they pose a significant threat to the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people. As we've seen many times, most notably within the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, these groups will not lay down their arms once the conflict is over."

That is a reasonable assumption, given that Biletsky's organization was training to fight well before the war started. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko should take note of Conyers' view, as well as of Western calls for the repeal of a recent law that makes it obligatory to honor World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist groups. Biletsky's graduation thesis was about one of them, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a militia guilty of the ethnic cleansing of Poles in western Ukraine.

Read more: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-12/ukraine-s-neo-nazis-won-t-get-u-s-money