Moscow, 2 August 2022 (dpa/MIA) - Russia's Supreme Court has declared the Ukrainian Azov regiment, which defended the port city of Mariupol that fell to Russian troops in mid-May, a "terrorist organisation." The court granted a corresponding request by the prosecutor general's office in Moscow on Tuesday. The classification is important because members of the Azov regiment are Russian prisoners of war and could thus be sentenced under Russian law. But it is also possible that the Azov fighters and other captured Ukrainians will be tried by the self-proclaimed authorities in the eastern Ukrainian separatist region of Donetsk. Moscow-backed authorities there have reintroduced the death penalty. One of the reasons Moscow has given for its invasion of Ukraine is its desire to "liberate" Ukraine from what it calls a fascist regime In fact, international experts largely agree that nationalists and right-wing radicals make up only a fraction of Ukrainian fighters. Representatives of the Azov regiment reacted to the classification by accusing Russia of trying to justify the killing of prisoners of war in Olenivka. The shelling of a prison facility near Olenivka in the separatist region last week killed more than 50 Ukrainians who were being held there as prisoners of war. Many of the dead belonged to the Azov regiment. Kiev and Moscow blame each other for the shelling.