A court in Ukraine’s Russia-annexed Crimea has sentenced a local DJ to 10 days in jail for playing a video clip of a song by Ukrainian rapper Yarmak.
The Lenin district court in Crimea said on August 15 that a Russian citizen in the town of Shcholkine was sentenced to 10 days in jail for playing the clip of the song "The Wild Field," which it said contains "the Nazi symbols of the Azov regiment that is banned in Russia," in a local cafe.
The man who was identified as a DJ in the cafe acknowledged that a customer had asked him to play the video in question.
Earlier, local media showed a video in which a man who introduced himself as Dmitry Gent said he had requested the clip.
Another video by media showed the DJ, who identified himself as Yury Radionov, saying that he had never seen the video and had no idea about its content before he played it at the customer’s request.
Created in 2014 as the Azov Battalion after Russia illegally annexed Crimea, the Azov Regiment is a far-right, volunteer group that is part of Ukraine’s National Guard. It espouses an ultranationalist ideology that U.S. law enforcement has linked to neo-Nazi extremism. But supporters see it as a patriotic and effective segment of the country’s defense forces, particularly since the all-out invasion by Russian forces began in February.
Russia falsely claims that Ukraine is controlled by Nazis and used that allegation among its justifications for its unprovoked invasion.
The Azov Regiment fought Russian troops for months in the southern city of Mariupol before around 2,500 fighters surrendered in mid-May.
On August 2, the Supreme Court of Russia designated the Azov Regiment as a "terrorist" organization.