Russia brands Ukrainian steel plant defenders terrorists
KYIV, UKRAINE » Russia’s Supreme Court declared Ukraine’s Azov Regiment a terrorist organization Tuesday, a move that could lead to terror charges against some of the captured fighters who made their last stand inside Mariupol’s shattered steel plant.
Russia and its separatist allies are holding an estimated 1,000 Azov soldiers prisoner, many of them since their surrender at the steelworks in mid-May. Russian authorities have opened criminal cases against them, accusing them of killing civilians. The addition of terrorism charges could mean fewer rights and longer prison sentences.
A terrorist organization leader could receive 15 to 20 years, and group members could get five to 10, according to Russian state media.
In testimony journalists were allowed to view, witnesses appearing before the Supreme Court supported the proposed terrorism designation, but most of the proceedings were held behind closed doors, so it was not known if any opponents testified.
“I can testify myself that Ukrainian snipers — Azov snipers — really shot civilians trying to escape the city” of Mariupol, Marina Akhmedova of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights testified. “I saw bodies lying on roads with my own eyes. There were many of them, and they were lying probably 10 meters apart from one another. There were no shell craters beside them.”
In a statement, the Azov Regiment dismissed the ruling, accusing the Kremlin of “looking for new excuses and explanations for its war crimes.” It urged the U.S. and other countries to declare Russia a terrorist state.
The Azov soldiers played a key part in the defense of Mariupol, holding out for weeks at the southern port city’s steel mill despite punishing attacks from Russian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed them and the other defenders as heroes. Moscow has repeatedly portrayed the Azov Regiment as a Nazi group and accused it of atrocities, but has publicly produced little evidence.
The regiment, a unit within Ukraine’s National Guard, has a checkered past. It grew out of a group called the Azov Battalion, formed in 2014 as one of many volunteer brigades created to fight Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The battalion drew its initial fighters from far-right circles.
While its current members reject accusations of extremism, the Kremlin has seized on the regiment’s right-wing origins to cast Russia’s invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine. Russian state media has repeatedly shown what it claimed to be Nazi insignias, literature and tattoos associated with the regiment.
Last week, dozens of Ukrainian POWs, including Azov fighters from the steel plant, were killed in an explosion at a prison barracks in Olenivka, an eastern town controlled by proRussian separatists. Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other, with Kyiv saying Russia blew up the barracks to cover up POW torture.
Meanwhile, the first cargo ship loaded with grain to leave Ukraine since Russia invaded more than five months ago safely crossed the Black Sea and anchored just outside Istanbul on Tuesday en route to Lebanon, under an agreement Moscow and Kyiv signed last month to unblock Ukraine’s agricultural exports and ease a global food crisis.
An estimated 20 million tons of grain have been stuck in Ukraine since the start of war. The U.N.-brokered agreement to release the grain calls for the establishment of safe corridors through the mined waters outside Ukraine’s ports.