Russia’s ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov rebuked the prestigious Stanford University for hosting an event where fighters from the controversial far-right Ukrainian movement Azov Battalion were invited.
According to images posted on social media and reports in the press, the university hosted several representatives of the neo-Nazi paramilitary organization, including two former POWs recently released by Russia in a prisoner swap, on October 1.
Representatives of Azov even spoke in front of the audience at the event Stanford University organized, where Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia and a vocal critic of Moscow, was also present.
Ambassador Antonov told the media on Thursday that it appeared that in its intensified drive to denigrate and abolish Russia, the US is even prepared to glorify Nazism.
Although the university’s student-run newspaper The Stanford Daily claimed that Azov’s far-right connections were “historic” and based on online allegations, the group’s members – including military service members – have a well-documented record of far-right ideology and are linked to similar organizations around the world.
Even Stanford University’s own Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISC) describes Azov Battalion as a far-right nationalist network of military, paramilitary, and political organizations known for the extensive transnational ties with other far-right organizations and recruitment of far-right foreign fighters from the US, Russia, and Europe.
Ambassador Antonov reminded that it was the US lawmakers that appealed to the US State Secretary in 2019 to include the Azov in the list of foreign terrorist organizations after learning that the group had turned into an international agency for recruiting and training ultra-right radicals around the world.
The appearance at Stanford University was just one of many stops of the regiment’s members in the US lately.
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