A petition to lift restrictions on the transfer of American weapons to Azov has garnered 25,000 signatures. The president will consider it

An electronic petition instructing the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine to urgently conduct negotiations with the United States regarding the cancellation of restrictions on the provision of weapons, other aid and training for the 12th special purpose brigade "Azov" of the National Guard of Ukraine has received the necessary 25 thousand signatures. Now the president has to consider it.

Petition No. 22/225678-ep was published on the website of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

The petition states that the US Consolidated Appropriations Act contains a provision that blocks the possibility of using US funds to provide the Azov battalion with weapons, training and other assistance.

It is worth noting that since 2014 "Azov" ceased to be a battalion and became a separate special purpose unit, and since February 2023 it is the 12th special purpose brigade "Azov" of the National Guard of Ukraine.

This is section 8131 of the Appropriations bill of 2017. Before that, this provision was removed from the bills before their final adoption, The Hill wrote.

The commander of the 12th brigade of the NSU, Lt. Col. Denys Prokopenko ("Redis"), has already asked the US to cancel the ban on the transfer of weapons to "Azov", because it was introduced several years ago and is still not canceled, despite the full-scale war. This yearʼs draft law on defense appropriations also includes this amendment.

"This amendment, which moves from one Appropriations bill to another every year, is the reason that in 2022, during the defense of Mariupol, Azov did not have the latest Western weapons. Then we restrained the overwhelming enemy forces in surrounded Mariupol, using the extremely limited resources we had, and showed extremely high efficiency," he said.

Currently, Azov cannot send its fighters to most of the leading Western military exercises and does not have access to the weapons bought with American funds, which the allies transfer to Ukraine.

Therefore, the petition now calls on Volodymyr Zelenskyi to instruct Denys Shmyhal and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to negotiate with the American government to cancel the ban.