Court in occupied Donbas orders up to 17 years in prison for 8 Ukrainian POWs
Source: Russian Investigative Committee/Telegram
The so-called Supreme Court of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DNR”) has sentenced eight Ukrainian soldiers to prison terms ranging from 15 to 17 years. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, these servicemen were mortar operators from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and allegedly shelled infrastructure in Mariupol in March and April 2022.
Russian-led occupational authorities accuse the soldiers of damaging gas distribution and pumping stations, resulting in significant material losses and harm to critical infrastructure.
The Russian-led court convicted them on charges of “cruel treatment of civilians” and “deliberate property damage.”
The list of those sentenced includes Denys Sivets,Yurii Halatskyi, Leonid Bulava, Ihor Zharenko, Semen Belyak, Yaroslav Bozhkov, Pavlo Bey, and Vitalii Kyrylenko.
In my previous column, I wrote about social innovations in Ukraine. Those innovations are part of civic resilience and the democratization of security, which Europe is paying close attention to right now. The EU is trying to work out how to spread responsibility for its own security across society as a whole, rather than leaving it to institutions alone. It is looking for concrete ways to bring ordinary people into the work of defense and resistance.
Petro Poroshenko’s lawyers have appealed to the High Anti-Corruption Court demanding that NABU be obligated to register proceedings regarding the fact of exerting influence on the court and to recognize Petro Poroshenko as a victim in the case of the Deputy Head of the Office of the President, Iryna Mudra, due to her pressure on Supreme Court judges who were considering a lawsuit to overturn sanctions.
Internationally recognized brands and financial institutions should direct capital to Ukraine now, not waiting for the hostilities to end. This was emphasized by Rinat Akhmetov, president of FC Shakhtar, during a working visit to UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, where he met with UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.
In recent days, Moscow’s official rhetoric has been dominated by hysteria over the decision of…
In 2025, the deadliest year yet for civilians, Ukraine’s three largest charitable foundations raised a record 105.9 billion hryvnias. It is more than the years 2022–2024 combined. According to the UN, humanitarian aid in Ukraine was delivered by more than 450 organisations, reaching five million people over the course of the year. Civic foundations hold licences to purchase lethal weapons, which is a function states have monopolised for centuries. These record sums were underwritten by international government grants, which means foreign states now channel billions directly through Ukrainian civic funds, bypassing inter-state channels. It is hard to imagine a stronger institutional trust in civil society.