MOSCOW: Kremlin-installed courts in Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine have sentenced three Ukrainian servicemen, including a human rights activist, to lengthy prison terms for allegedly mistreating civilians, Russian investigators said on Friday.

“The supreme courts of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics issued sentences in three criminal cases against Ukrainian citizens Viktor Pokhozey, Maksym Butkevych and Vladislav Shel,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Moscow last year declared the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine part of Russia following referendums denounced by Kyiv and the West.

“All of them were found guilty of mistreating the civilian population and using prohibited methods (of fighting) in an armed conflict,” the statement added.

Butkevych, a Ukrainian rights activist and co-founder of the independent Hromadske radio, and Shel were also convicted of attempted murder.

Butkevych joined the Ukrainian army in March, shortly after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

Investigators claimed that Butkevych injured two civilians when he “fired an anti-tank grenade launcher” at the entrance of a residential building in Severodonetsk, a city in the region of Lugansk now under Russian control.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023