No, Israel does not arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine

Adin Haykin
2 min readOct 15, 2021

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The source of this claim is from Haaretz’s article, It is alleged that Israel gave Ukraine approval for making Tavor, Negev and Galil rifles.

The article repeatedly claims:
“Thus, for example, Ukrainian soldiers have been seen carrying Israeli-made Tavor rifles”
“The website has a photo of shooting practice with a Tavor rifle”
“An Azov militiaman with a Tavor rifle”

The main proof is Azov’s YouTube video in which they allegedly claim to be showing Tavor:

But the video itself, on the other hand, explicitly says in the title that these are “Fort-221” and “Fort-224” rifles.

“Fort” is a Ukrainian weapons manufacturer from Vinnytsia, Ukraine which has been manufacturing independent weapons since 1991

What happened is in October 2008, RPC Fort and Israel Weapon Industries reached an agreement to allow Fort to license-manufacture a locally produced versions of firearms such as the Tavor rifle system,

So in fact, these are not Israeli weapons, but Ukrainian weapons designed according to the Israeli model in 2008.

Neo-Nazi militias, such as the Azov Battalion, were not formed before 2014, so the claim that Israel is “arming” them, at best, stems from a lack of understanding of weapons licenses.

In practice, Israel has repeatedly condemned the neo-Nazis in Ukraine

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Adin Haykin

Israeli, IDF soldier and researcher of Israeli history and wars