Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have sentenced three Ukrainian soldiers to lengthy prison terms for “violence against civilians,” the Russian investigative committee said on Friday.
Viktor Pokhozei, Maxim Boutkevitch and Vladislav Chel, captured during the Russian offensive in Ukraine, have been found guilty of “violence against the civilian population” and “use of prohibited methods during an armed conflict,” according to a press release by the Main Investigations in Russia.
Mr Boutkevitch and Mr Chel, also convicted of attempted murder of multiple people, were sentenced to 13 and 18.5 years respectively. Mr. Pokhozei was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
Those rulings were made by the “supreme courts” of the pro-Russian separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, which were controlled by Moscow, which last year called for its annexation, which was not recognized by the international community.
Ukrainian human rights activist and founder of the independent radio station Hromadske Radio, Maxime Boutkevitch, joined the Ukrainian army in March 2022, shortly after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Russian investigators accused him of injuring two civilians after firing an anti-tank grenade launcher at an apartment building in Severodonetsk, a town captured by the Russian army in the Lugansk region last June.
For his part, Mr. Pokhozei, one of the commanders of the Azov regiment, composed in particular of Ukrainian nationalists and who had distinguished himself in the defense of the city of Mariupol, captured by the Russians after a devastating siege of several months, was charged with a civilian with his rifle hold true.
Vladislav Chel, also a fighter in the Azov regiment, was accused of opening fire on a civilian in an apartment building in Mariupol “with the aim of intimidating civilians”.