Ukraine court sentences three people to 15 years in prison for joining pro-Russian militias in Donetsk

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Ukrainian authorities announced Tuesday the sentencing to 15 years in prison against three people for joining militias in the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic, located in the east of the country.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has indicated that a Ukrainian court has found these three people “guilty of treason” and of collaborating with Russia’s “armed aggression” against Ukraine, before adding that they were captured in late March in the town of Viljivka, in the Kharkov region.

Thus, he has pointed out that the three “are part of the illegal armed formation of the Russian occupation forces” and added that they “received military training” in Donetsk. “After that, they were sent to the Russian city of Belgorod for intensive military training at a military base and returned to Ukraine, after which they were sent to Kharkov, where they were quickly captured by Ukrainian defenders,” he has detailed.

Finally, he has noted in a message on his Telegram account that “pre-trial investigations were conducted by SBU investigators in the Ivano-Frankivsk region with operational support of the National Police and under procedural guidance of the General Prosecutor’s Office.”

The war in Ukraine broke out on February 24 following the invasion order signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who days earlier had recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (east), the scene of an armed conflict since 2014.