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Opposing Russia's war need not mean whitewashing the Azov Battalion
Ukrainian volunteers with the neonazi paramilitary Azov National Corps with their flags demonstrate their force, during Ukrainian Volunteer Day in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 14, 2020
RUSSIA’S plan to put captured members of the Azov Battalion on trial for war crimes will deepen the mystification of this notorious regiment across the West.
Though it will be easy enough to find genuine victims of the far-right militia — its responsibility for torture and extrajudicial killings during the Donbass conflict from 2014 onwards has been documented by rights groups including Amnesty International — it is clear enough that trying these prisoners of war on Russian soil will be a propaganda exercise.
Russia, like the United States, does not recognise the International Criminal Court or its right to hold Russian soldiers accountable for war crimes, which undermines its credibility when seeking to hold others to account for them.
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