Katie Halper, a comedian and podcaster, told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that she believes the U.S. is escalating conflict between Ukraine and Russia by arming Ukrainian troops that are in some instances reportedly being backed by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
She said backing Ukrainian forces could lead to “blood” on the government’s hands.
“I just think that this is something we see a lot in history, right, in the United States. We arm a certain side, there are people in that side who are alleged moderate rebels and then these people wind up being armed and controlling things and I think it’s just a reminder of why we should not be escalating this conflict,” Halper said.
“And I understand why a lot of people see this as a defensive thing to help Ukrainian defend themselves. They are not going to out-arm Russia so all we’re doing is prolonging this. All we’re doing is escalating this and there are so many times where we could have used diplomacy. So there is a lot of blood on the hands of the U.S. government in this conflict,” she added.
The Azov Battalion is a military unit reportedly within the Ukrainian forces made up of many neo-Nazi supporters and sympathizers. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, recently came under fire to allowing users’ praise of the group to stand after it had been previously banned under Facebook’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy.
Halper said while a majority of Ukrainians do not support such far-right groups, there are dangers in the U.S. supporting Ukrainians that may be among them.
“This real sanitization of the neo-Nazi and fascist elements of and again they are not the majority of the Ukrainian resistance but they are significant and they are have kind of disproportionate power which is often the case for very radical groups,” she said.
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