“There is also the Azov battalion, which does not consist of volunteers, but is part of the National Guard of our state.
Today it is part of the Armed Forces, and all of them are the official army of our state, ”RIA Novosti quotes him as saying in an interview with the Greek public television ERT when asked about the attitude towards the fighters of the Azov regiment.
Zelensky added that not only the fighters of this formation, but also the National Guard, border guards, special forces, as well as the Armed Forces of Ukraine are on the "defense" of Mariupol.
“And if there are challenges or calls for radicalism, I believe that in our state there are much fewer of them compared to other countries of the world.
I think we have almost none,” he said.
The President of Ukraine stressed that the authorities are closely monitoring radical statements, "stop and immediately take" measures.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with the Italian television company Mediaset, recalled that the West itself did not hesitate to recognize the Ukrainian Azov regiment as neo-Nazis.
He also recalled that the captured militants of the national battalions "Azov", "Aidar" and other formations in Ukraine wear the symbols of the Nazi Waffen-SS battalions on their clothes and on their bodies and openly promote the works of Adolf Hitler.