Russia says Azov Battalion members deserve “humiliating death” by hanging

The Russian Embassy in the UK has argued that members of the far-right Azov Battalion deserve a “humiliating death” by hanging in a message published after the death of more than 50 prisoners of war on Friday in a shelling on a prison in Olenivka, Donetsk, which Kiev and Moscow accuse each other of.

“The Azov militiamen deserve execution, but not a firing squad, but a hanging because they are not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death,” the Russian Embassy in London has posted on Twitter, a message that has been tagged with a hate speech warning by the social network itself.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko has mentioned the tweet and appealed to “read this when they say Russia should not be isolated.” “There is no difference between Russian diplomats calling for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war and Russian troops doing it in Olenivka. They are all complicit in these war crimes and must be held accountable,” he has argued.

Meanwhile, the Azov Battalion has reported that it is checking the list of the dead in Olenivka published by Russia, as they would be survivors of the Russian siege of the Azovstal industrial plant in Mariupol, the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion in this city. Kiev assures that the attack was the work of the Russian private security group Wagner.

Russia has immediately accused Ukraine of the shelling on the former correctional colony of Olenivka and denounced the death of Ukrainian fighters. Kiev has denied this accusation and blamed Moscow for this attack to “conceal war crimes, discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces and prevent the supply of Western weaponry”.

Ukraine has also asked the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate this “terrorist attack” and send an inspection mission to the area. It has also called for the designation of Russia as a country sponsoring terrorism.