Russia hands long prison terms to Ukrainian 'Azov' fighters who defended Mariupol

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (Reuters) -A Russian military court on Wednesday handed down long prison sentences to 12 members of Ukraine's Azov regiment, which led the defence of the city of Mariupol in the early months of the war and is designated as a terrorist organisation by Russia.

The defendants, charged with terrorist activity and with violently seizing or retaining power, were sentenced to between 13 and 23 years in prison, Russian state media reported.

Independent news outlet Mediazona said 11 other people whom Russia had already returned to Ukraine in prisoner exchanges were also sentenced in absentia. They included nine women who had worked as army cooks.

It said the 12 Azov members, who appeared in court with shaven heads, would appeal the verdicts and that some of them had denied wrongdoing or had said that testimony they had given had been obtained under duress, something Reuters was not able to confirm.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets accused Russia of violating international humanitarian law and called the verdicts "illegal" in a statement on Telegram.

Lubinets said he had sent a complaint about the case to the United Nations.

"Ukrainian prisoners of war are combatants, not criminals! They were fulfilling their duty to the state, protecting its territorial integrity and sovereignty," he said.

The Azov regiment, which is banned inside Russia, has been a special focus of Russian anger, often characterised by Moscow as a fanatical grouping of Russia-hating neo-Nazis.

Ukraine rejects Russia's description of Azov as a terrorist organisation. The regiment was founded by a hardline nationalist, Andriy Biletskiy, but subsequently dissociated itself from his politics.

From 2014, it was folded into Ukraine's National Guard and Kyiv says it was reformed away from its radical nationalist origins and is now apolitical.

For many Ukrainians, Azov fighters are heroes who came to symbolise the spirit of national resistance, clinging on in the devastated ruins of Mariupol as Russia besieged the port city between February and May 2022.

Russia said nearly 2,500 eventually surrendered, emerging from their refuge in a vast network of bunkers tunnels beneath the city's Azovstal steelworks. The Kremlin said at the time that President Vladimir Putin had guaranteed that they would be treated according to international standards.

Prior to Wednesday's sentences, the head of Russia's state Investigative Committee said earlier this month that Russian courts had so far convicted 145 Azov members.

(Reporting by Reuters in MoscowAdditional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk,writing by Mark TrevelyanEditing by Andrew Osborn)