Russia’s fake ‘Donetsk people’s republic high court’ has passed 24- and 28-year sentences against nine Ukrainian prisoners of war, seized while defending Mariupol in the first month of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Russia has long been churning out such ‘sentences’ against men held in horrific conditions and, almost certainly, tortured for ‘confessions’ to the war crimes that the invading Russian forces committed. Russia’s attempt to rewrite the historical facts and blame Ukrainian defenders for their war crimes is an international crime in itself, with the huge sentences passed demonstrating that Russia understands the scale of its own war crimes.
Russia also knows that prisoners of war are a protected group under international war. This would not prevent them from being charged with war crimes, but there would need to be clear evidence and proof that their right to a fair trial had been fully respected. Instead, Russia is staging a steady stream of virtually identical ‘trials’ in an unrecognized ‘court’ to which no independent journalists or observers have any access. The almost always vague charges are generally reported together with the news of huge sentences, passed by unnamed ‘judges’, and reported, either by occupation ‘prosecutors’ or by the Russian Investigative Committee. The latter very often accompanies such reports with videos in which the prisoner of war is seen giving an obviously rehearsed ‘confession’. There are all grounds to assume that such ‘confessions’ were extracted through the “widespread and systematic use of torture confirmed by both the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.
Almost three years after the international community watched as Russia bombed Mariupol hospitals, schools and residential bombings, Russia used its so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic prosecutor’ to state, on 9 December, that nine marines from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade had been convicted of “shelling residential buildings.”
It was claimed that, in March 2022, the marines had shelled the settlement of Stary Krym near Mariupol from the Azovstal Steel Works. Over ten buildings had been damaged, with the material damage over 1.4 million roubles. It is notable that no attempt was made to claim that specific civilians had been injured or killed.
The fake ‘DPR high court’ sentenced Maksym Kolbasin; Volodymyr Penzin; Kostiantyn Romaniuk; Andriy Shestak; Vadym Shulha; Serhiy Yampolsky; and Vladyslav Yavorsky; to 24 years’; Nazariy Moroz to 28 years. All those sentences are in in the appalling conditions of a Russian maximum-security prison colony, however Dmytro Shalar was sentenced to life imprisonment, in the even worse conditions of a ‘special regime’ prison colony.
All of these ‘sentences’, which are far worse than those received by the multiple killers and other criminals whom Russia has pardoned in exchange for agreeing to fight and kill Ukrainians, were passed in near total secrecy. There is nothing to suggest that any of the men had independent lawyers.
The same illegitimate body also handed down a 24-year sentence in a maximum-security prison colony against 30-year-old Denys Khmelevsky, who is described as a senior gunner from the Azov Regiment. In his case, it was claimed that he had issued an order to kill two unnamed civilians in a basement in Mariupol, with the charges under Article 105 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code (the supposed killing of two people, carried out by an organized group, out of motives of political and ideological enmity) and Article 356 § 1 (ill-treatment of the civilian population).
Russia’s attempts to blame Ukrainian prisoners of war for its war crimes in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities that it invaded have not convinced international observers.
See: UN report demolishes Russia’s attempts to blame Ukrainian POWs for its atrocities in Mariupol
