The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson on Wednesday alleged that Israeli mercenaries were fighting alongside Ukraine’s far-right Azov Regiment, further inflaming relations with Israel after Russia said Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood.”

In an interview with pro-Kremlin radio station Sputnik, Maria Zakharova stated, “Israeli mercenaries are practically shoulder to shoulder with Azov militants in Ukraine.”

The Azov sprang to popularity in 2014 when far-right extremists took up guns to combat pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area, but has since been taken over by the Ukrainian military.

They’ve been fighting with the Ukrainian army against Russian soldiers, who began a military operation in the pro-Western country on February 24.

Its members are part of the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, which is holed up within the Azovstal steel complex, which Russian soldiers attacked on Tuesday.

By implying that Israelis are fighting with Azov, whom Russia regards as “fascists” and “Nazis,” Moscow is exacerbating tensions that arose when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared on Sunday that Hitler had “Jewish blood.”

His comments provoked fury in Israel, which labelled them “unforgivable and outrageous” and a “terrible historical error.”

Russia’s foreign ministry accused Israel on Tuesday of supporting “the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.” Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish.

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