“Israeli mercenaries” are fighting in Ukraine alongside the Azov battalion, which Moscow calls “Nazis,” a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
“I’m going to say something that Israeli politicians undoubtedly don’t want to hear, but it might interest them. Israeli mercenaries in Ukraine are on the side of Azov fighters,” Maria Zakharova told Sputnik in an interview. radio.
The Azov battalion, founded in 2014 by far-right military personnel and later integrated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces, is one of the most combative opponents of Russian troops, which launched a military offensive on Ukraine on February 24.
Members and other Ukrainian fighters refuse to surrender their weapons in the besieged port of Mariupol (southeastern Ukraine), where the last defenders of the city are based at the Azovstal steelworks, which has been the target of a Russian attack since Tuesday.
For many Ukrainians they are heroes, but in Russia they are presented as abusive “fascists” and “Nazis”.
Moscow is fueling the debate created by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who claimed on Sunday that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood” by claiming that there were Israelis fighting in the battalion, a theory dismissed by historians.
The statement sparked outrage in Israel, which its officials called a “scandalous, inexcusable and horrific historical mistake”.
On Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry added to the controversy, accusing Israel of “supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish.
source: Noticias
