Captured Ukrainians convicted on terrorism charges by Russia in what Kyiv called a sham trial

Russia on Wednesday convicted 23 captured Ukrainians on terrorism charges stemming from the war in Ukraine in a military court trial that Kyiv denounced as a sham and a violation of international law.

The defendants included current or former fighters of the elite Azov brigade, which Russia designated a terrorist group, and those who worked there as cooks or support personnel, according to Russian media reports and rights activists.

Memorial, a prominent Russian human rights group, designated the defendants as political prisoners. It said some of them were captured in 2022 during fighting in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where they held out at the Azovstal steel mill under siege by Russian troops. Others were detained as they tried to leave the city after it was overrun by Russian forces, the group said.

Only 12 defendants were in court Wednesday in the city of Rostov-on-Don, while 11 others, including nine women, returned to Ukraine in prisoner exchanges and were convicted in absentia. One other defendant died in custody last year and the case against him was closed.

All had been charged with staging a violent coup d’etat and organizing the activities of a terrorist organization. Some faced an additional charge of training to carry out terrorist activities.

Those convicted were given prison sentences ranging from 13 to 23 years. The 12 men still in Russian custody will serve their their time in maximum security penal colonies, according to the court. According to Russian independent news site Mediazona, all 12 plan to appeal the verdict.

Memorial has said “none of the defendants in the case are accused of any war crimes: they are all being tried for the very fact of serving” in Azov at one time or another.

Ukraine’s human rights envoy, Dmytro Lubinets, denounced the proceedings when they began in June 2023 as “another sham trial” held for Russia’s “own amusement.”

“‘Russia’ and ‘fair justice’ have nothing in common. The world must respond to such shameful sham trials of Ukrainian defenders,” Lubinets said at the time. “It is obvious to everyone that those who should be in the dock are not those defending themselves but those who initiated the aggression, those who invaded foreign land with weapons, and those who arrived with tanks on the territory of an independent state!”

That same month, Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on X that the trial of combatants amounted to “an official war crime” warranting a response from the International Criminal Court.

Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Coordination Center for the Treatment of POWs, echoed his sentiment in remarks quoted by the Hromadske news outlet, saying the proceedings violated the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.

Rostov-on-Don, the site of the court, is home to Russia’s Southern Military District, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the Ukrainian border.

Mediazona reported that the defendants testified of abuse behind bars, saying they were severely beaten and had bones broken, were interrogated with bags over their heads, were given food laced with household chemicals, and were forced to stand all day long and sing the Russian anthem.

These allegations are in line with reports by Russian and international human rights groups that detail systematic abuse of Ukrainian POWs and civilian captives in Russian custody.