“Human rights activists, journalists and other activists who followed Azov’s activity for years took part in the process. They presented videos and audios, included witnesses’ statements, evidencing the torture and killings of civilians, among them children,” Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov told Kommersant newspaper.

Referring to the process of declaring the Ukrainian group a terrorist group, a step taken by the Russian Supreme Court on August 2, the judicial official said that evidence was found on the battalion’s premeditated attacks on civilian facilities and the planting of explosive devices in crowded places.

Krasnov also argued that evidence shows the terrorist nature of the acts, as well as the use of prohibited weapons and methods of warfare.

The investigators, the prosecutor said, “came to the unequivocal conclusion that Azov acted as a nationalist formation based on the Nazi ideology.”

In this regard, he remarked that the crimes perpetrated by its members could be compared in cruelty to the acts conducted by the German fascist invaders and their accomplices during World War II.

The Supreme Court detailed that the terrorist designation applied against Azov entails sentences from 10 to 20 years imprisonment for the rank and file, and from 15 to 20 years for the organizers.

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