MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Tokyo’s decision to exclude the Ukrainian Azov battalion from the category of neo-Nazi organization stems from its all-round support for Ukrainian authorities, Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin said on Monday.

"I think that the actions the corresponding Japanese structures undertook to exclude the Azov nationalist battalion from the category of neo-Nazi organizations stem from the fact that Japan, like other Group of Seven nations, supports the Kiev regime in all its actions, including those against the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

According to Galuzin, Japanese society "is under a strong pressure of the anti-Russian propaganda." "However, I should admit that despite the difficult information situation around Russia and around the Russian-Japanese relations, many people still have friendly attitude to Russia," he said.

According to earlier reports, the Japanese justice ministry’s public security management department removed the description of the Azov nationalist battalion as "established by neo-Nazi organizations" from an international terrorist guidebook for 2021.