Russian-installed courts in Ukraine's eastern regions sentenced five Ukrainian soldiers to lengthy prison terms, Russia's Investigative Committee said Monday, August 21.
"The court sentenced (Andrey) Klementovich, (Artur) Sivitsky and (Ivan) Melnikovich to 20 years' imprisonment each, to be served in a strict regime penal colony," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
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It published footage of three men handcuffed inside a court's defendant’s cage.
The Investigative Committee said the three men were found guilty of "cruel treatment of the civilian population" and "attempted murder".
The court alleged the three soldiers fought in Mariupol, which was captured by Russian forces in May 2022 after a devastating siege, and had been "preventing civilians from leaving the city using the humanitarian corridor."
In Lugansk, east Ukraine, serviceman Bogdan Smaga was sentenced to 17 years for wounding civilians, according to the same source.
And another Ukrainian soldier, Igor Lemeshev, was jailed for 20 years for the shelling of a residential area, during which a civilian was killed.
Russia now claims Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions as its own, along with Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south, which it claimed to annex after a formal ceremony last September.
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