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(CNN) — A Russian military court has handed down long prison sentences to several members of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, which led the defense of the key city of Mariupol during the early months of the war.
The defendants were convicted on Wednesday of charges including violent seizure of power and participation in a terrorist organization and given prison terms ranging from 13 to 23 years, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia.
Russia has sought to paint the Azov Regiment as made up of Nazis and nationalists, allegations the group denies, and the US last year lifted a ban on supplying them weapons.
The city of Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, after Ukrainian soldiers, including members of the Azov unit, and residents sheltered for weeks underground in 2022 at the city’s massive Azovstal steelworks plant refusing to surrender to Russian forces.
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don announced the verdict in absentia for 11 individuals, while 12 appeared in person. One member reportedly died in Russian detention, while others have since been exchanged.
The case involved members of the Azov regiment — now part of Ukraine’s National Guard — captured during the siege of Mariupol.
According to the prosecution, the court established the individuals took “actions aimed at the violent change of the constitutional order of Russia.” Russian authorities designated the Azov unit a terrorist group in 2022, after it started the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The trial, initially dubbed “the case of 24,” involved Ukrainian prisoner of war Oleksandr Ishchenko, who died in a Russian pretrial detention center as a result of a closed chest injury due to “contact with a blunt object,” according to Azov commander Svyatoslav Palamar citing a Ukrainian forensic expert.
Russian human rights organization Memorial designated the defendants political prisoners and said there was evidence of violations, including “cruel treatment, excruciating conditions of detention, lack of normal food and medical care, insults, bullying, beatings and torture.”
The sentencing coincided with Ukraine’s National Guard Day, which President Volodymyr Zelensky marked by praising the bravery of National Guard units and reaffirming Kyiv’s diplomatic efforts to free all Ukrainian prisoners of war, including Azov fighters.
Zelensky said Kyiv remembers “all Ukrainian warriors – in particular, National Guard warriors, defenders of Mariupol, and Azov fighters, who, unfortunately, remain in Russian captivity.”
“We are working at all levels of diplomacy to free them and bring them home,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire
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