Ukrainian military in Kyiv. File photoDONETSK, March 26 Surrendered militant of the Ukrainian nationalist regiment «Azov» (against whose fighters a criminal case has been initiated in the Russian Federation) Oleksiy Smykov told RIA Novosti that the tactics used by his colleagues to use civilians as «live shield» is mean.
"Let's just say: for me personally, such tactics are incomprehensible, because when a person positions himself as a warrior — high ideals, there, like Vikings, warriors and stuff like that — and then, let's say, he does such things, as you called it, for me personally it is not clear. That is, if you called yourself a warrior, then already fight to the bone, already without such people, let's say, not that they are ugly … this is vile, vile actions, I think & # 34;, — said Smykov.
«That is, if you wanted to fight the Chechens — fight, if you wanted to fight the Russians — here is an opportunity, fight, with the Republicans — please. But I don’t understand politics, I have never been a supporter when innocent people, let’s say, are used as a shield,» he noted. Smykov said he did not know who came up with this tactic. “I can’t say: I… I was no longer in Mariupol at the time when all this had already begun to happen,” a member of the National Regiment claims. />General Staff: neo-Nazis in Mariupol are hiding behind the townspeople as a human shieldRussia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the President of Russia emphasized. Against the backdrop of hostilities in a large number of cities and villages of Ukraine, a humanitarian catastrophe is emerging. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation lays responsibility for this on the Kiev authorities, who refuse to coordinate the work of humanitarian corridors, as well as local nationalists, in some cases, according to the military department, holding civilians as human shields.
Azov militant compared Ukrainian military service to a prison