Ukrainian abducted to Russia and sentenced to 18 years for defending Ukraine in 2015
A Russian court has sentenced Serhiy Kosolap to 18 years’ maximum-security imprisonment for having served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces Aidar Battalion back in 2015 when the young Ukrainian was just 22. The profoundly illegal charges against him were based on a flawed and politically motivated ruling passed almost eight years after Kosolap left the Battalion.
Serhiy Kosolap (b. 8 August 1993) is from the village of Polovynkyne, Starobilsk raion in Luhansk oblast. Although the Russian prosecution claimed that he was ‘detained’ at a checkpoint in Russia’s Rostov oblast in 2024, this seems implausible. It is unlikely that Kosolap would have risked travelling to Russia, with this entailing the checking of his documents if there was anything in them revealing his service in Aidar back in 2015.
It seems probable that Kosolap was abducted from his home in Starobilsk raion, which has been under Russian occupation since 2022. In its indictment against him, Russia demonstrates both contempt for the fundamental principle that the law is not retrospective, and determination to rewrite history. It is falsely claimed that, back in 2015, Kosolap was in the Starobilsk raion of the Russian proxy ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ or ‘LPR’. This is of particular relevance given the preposterous assertion that Kosolap “was aware of the terrorist nature of the activities of the Aidar Battalion”, and yet “joined this terrorist organization’.
The same Southern District Military Court which has now sentenced Kosolap over involvement in Aidar in 2015 only declared this division of Ukraine’s Armed Forces ‘a terrorist organization’ on 23 September 2023, with the ruling coming into force on 22 November 2023.
The Aidar Battalion was one of the volunteer formations which arose in reaction to Russia’s military aggression in early 2014. There were concerns over the behaviour of some members of the battalion during this very early stage, with those concerns probably a factor in Ukraine’s formally incorporating the Battalion into the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2015 as the 24th Separate Assault Battalion.
Russia has used politically obedient courts, including its supreme court, to declare at least three military formations within the Ukrainian Armed Forces ‘terrorist’. The rulings against the Azov Regiment, the Aidar Battalion and Dnipro Battalion were all passed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and were widely seen as aimed at providing pretexts for illegal trials of Ukrainian prisoners of war. This has, indeed, proven to be the case, as seen in the horrific 20-year sentence against Ukrainian POW Yury Bondarenko.
It has, however, used such surreal terrorism’ charges against civilians as reprisals for earlier service in the above-mentioned parts of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
The lack of a ruling before 23 September 2023 did not stop Russia from abducting Ukrainian civilians and charging them with ‘terrorism’ for having once served in Aidar. Any such ‘trials’ are illegal since Russia, as occupying state, is prohibited by international law from applying its legislation on occupied territory. They also violate fundamental principles of law. In January 2024, for example, Volodymyr Linnyk (b. 1974), who is also from Luhansk oblast, was convicted by the same Southern District Military Court in Rostov of ‘taking part in a terrorist organization (under Article 205.4 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code’ over the claim that he had served for several months in the Aidar Battalion in 2016. Although Linnyk is a veteran of the war in Donbas, he has stated that he was never actually in the Aidar Battalion which at that stage had long been a formally recognized part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. He also categorically dismisses the ‘terrorism’ charges, saying “serving your country cannot be terrorism”,
Linnyk was sentenced, on 20 December 2024, to six years’ maximum-security imprisonment. The sentence was three times lower than that against Serhiy Kosolap. Since the two men had served for similar periods of time back in the past, the difference was presumably because, in December 2024, the ruling declaring Aidar ‘terrorist’ had come into force less than a month earlier, with most of the ‘trial’ taking place before the ruling.
Serhiy Kosolap was charged over his brief service in the Aidar Battalion with having taken part in a terrorist organization (under Article 205.4 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code’). He was also accused of ‘training to carry out terrorist activities’ (Article 205.3), with this Russia’s distortion of the obvious fact that the young Kosolap had needed military training before beginning active service.
The ‘case’ was passed to the court in June 2024, with the 18-year sentence passed by ‘judge’ Sakit Eskerkhanovich Lachinov on 8 April 2025. Judging by the number of hearings, Kosolap also rejected the charges, and will, presumably, lodge an appeal.