Donetsk, Dec 20 — DAN. The Donetsk People’s Republic Supreme Court has given long prison terms to nine gunmen of the nationalistic formation “Azov” (banned in the Russian Federation) for crimes against civilians, Russia’s Investigative Committee (SK) reported on Wednesday.
The Court, on the strength of the evidence gathered by the SK, passed guilty verdicts on Nikolai Kuzmenko, Alexey Kachuyevsky, Bogdan Pechko, Anatoly Mogilny, Vladislav Sygys, Nikolai Svyatoi, Vadim Logosh, Yaroslav Bezmenov and Maxim Dubrov, the report said. They had been accused of cruel treatment of civilians, attempted hate murder and malicious damage to property.
The “Azov” fighters fired fragmentation shells at civil infrastructure from their position in Mariupol at least ten times every day, in the period from February 25 to March 17, 2022. Several homes were ruined in the Lebedinskoye village in the attacks. The gunmen were aware that their actions could result in civilian casualties, the Court said.
Kuzmenko and Pechko got 25 years, Kachuyevsky, Mogilny, Sygys, Svyatoi, Logosh and Dubrov 24 years and Bezmenov 23 years in a maximum security prison.
Earlier, the DPR Supreme Court sentenced a Ukrainian marine for deadly vehicle shooting, and convicted another gunman in absentia for issuing the order in the beginning of the special military operation to fire at Donbass settlements.*jk