MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Washington uses questionable approaches while designating certain entities as terrorist organizations and adding them to relevant lists, and this fact is also confirmed by domestic US experts, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Friday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry referred to a report, issued by the US-based non-governmental organization Anti-Defamation League and the George Washington University, headlined ‘White Supremacist Terror: Modernizing our Approach to Today’s Threat.’ The experts named Ukraine’s nationalist organization, the Azov Battalion, as the main candidate for becoming designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
"According to the report, this Ukrainian group presents an evident threat and fully complies with criteria of the blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations," the ministry said. "Estonian ultra-right group, Feuerkrieg Division, which has many US citizens in its ranks, is also mentioned in this context, as well as many others."
However, the US government has not yet paid attention to the opinion of experts.
"Regretfully, as we see, Washington is guided by another approach, based on habitual media-political manipulation and proverbial double standards," the ministry said.
"Conclusions of experts, who undertook to lay down recommendations, including with regard to expanding lists of terrorists, and Washington’s reaction to them, once again raise serious doubts about motives of the US side, which brazenly uses its self-proclaimed authority to impose sanctions under the pretext of fighting global terrorism and extremism," the ministry said.
The US Congress recommended including the Azov Battalion into the list of terrorist organizations in the fall of 2019.