Moscow Supreme Court Establishes Terrorist Group Status, Azov Regiment: Russia Seeks Justification After Public Execution

Illustration of troops of the Azov Regiment. (Wikimedia Commons/Carl Ridderstråle)

JAKARTA - Russia's top court on Tuesday designated Ukraine's Azov Regiment a terrorist group, a Reuters correspondent said in the courtroom. The decision paves the way for captured Azov soldiers to be tried under strict anti-terror laws, which face up to 20 years in prison.

The Azov Regiment, which has far-right and ultra-nationalist roots, has become one of the most prominent Ukrainian military formations fighting against Russia in eastern Ukraine.

After starting as a paramilitary unit fighting against pro-Russian rebels in 2014, it was later integrated into Ukraine's national guard.

Related to a statement posted on Telegram, the Azov Regiment said Russia was seeking new justifications for war crimes, urging the US State Department to designate Russia a terrorist state.

"After the public execution of prisoners of war from the 'Azov' regiment in Olenivka, Russia is seeking new excuses and explanations for its war crimes," the unit said in the post.

The statement referred to last week's explosion at a site housing Ukrainian prisoners of war, which Moscow said killed more than 50 people. Both Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for the explosion.

Russia regularly cites Azov to support his assertion that Ukraine is controlled by 'fascists'. Russian state media have compared the Azov fighters to World War Two-era Nazis, whose defeat by the Soviet Union remains a core part of Russia's national identity.

Previously based in the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, many personnel of the Azov regiment were captured by Russian forces when the city fell in May after a nearly three-month siege.

Officials in the Donetsk People's Republic, a Russia-backed entity that claims Mariupol as part of its territory, said in May that the captured Azov Regiment fighters could face the death penalty under the republic's self-proclaimed law.

Last week, the Russian Embassy in London said in a Twitter post that the detained Azov personnel should be hanged and that they "deserved a shameful death".