{"id":1308380,"date":"2025-10-18T18:01:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T15:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/russian-court-sentences-ukrainian-fighters-of-aidar-battalion-to-21-years-in-prison-foreign-ministrys-reaction\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T18:01:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T15:01:35","slug":"russian-court-sentences-ukrainian-fighters-of-aidar-battalion-to-21-years-in-prison-foreign-ministrys-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/russian-court-sentences-ukrainian-fighters-of-aidar-battalion-to-21-years-in-prison-foreign-ministrys-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian court sentences Ukrainian fighters of Aidar battalion to 21 years in prison: Foreign Ministry’s reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has expressed a strong protest over the illegal verdict of the Southern District Military Court of the Russian Federation, which on October 17 sentenced 15 prisoners of war fighters of the 24th separate assault battalion “Aidar”. The Russian court sentenced the defenders to sentences ranging from sixteen to twenty-one years in prison.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was reported by the press service<\/a> of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n

The department noted that the decision was made solely on the basis of the fact of military service of Ukrainians in the “Aidar” battalion, which the day before was unjustifiably recognized in Russia as a “terrorist organization.”<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stressed that, in accordance with the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, defenders are combatants and, after being captured, have the status of prisoners of war. The ministry emphasized that the Geneva Convention categorically prohibits holding prisoners of war accountable for participating in hostilities or belonging to the armed forces of their state.<\/p>\n

“All attempts by the Russian Federation to try Ukrainian prisoners of war for their legitimate participation in the defense of the Motherland are null and void,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Ministry called the verdict another example of the use of the Russian judicial system as an instrument of political repression, propaganda, and intimidation. The ministry emphasized that this and similar verdicts by the Russian “Themis” are legally null and void.<\/p>\n

Ukraine will continue to use all international platforms and levers to release its citizens from Russian prisons.<\/p>\n

The Ministry called on the international community to strongly condemn the illegal verdicts of the Russian court, which are regarded as another war crime by the Russian Federation, and to increase political, diplomatic and sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

“The world community, which values the rule of law and human dignity, must support Ukraine and Ukrainian prisoners of war,” the Foreign Ministry emphasized.<\/p>\n

By the way, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Ukrainian prisoner of war<\/a> , fighter of the Azov brigade, Vitaliy Kostyuchenko.<\/p>\n

Earlier, on October 1, 2025 , the same court in Rostov-on-Don handed down an identical sentence to another captured “Azov”<\/a> – 33-year-old Dmytro Remez from Zaporizhia, sentencing him to 18 years in a maximum-security colony on similar charges.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, on June 14, a trial of 22 Ukrainian servicemen belonging to \u201cAzov\u201d took place<\/a> in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Of the 24 fighters who were charged with the so-called \u201ccharges,\u201d two were exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, and eight more were women who worked as cooks in the \u201cAzov\u201d regiment.<\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has expressed a strong protest over the illegal verdict of the Southern District Military Court of the Russian Federation, which on October 17 sentenced 15 prisoners of war fighters of the 24th separate assault battalion “Aidar”. The Russian court sentenced the defenders to sentences ranging from sixteen to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":1308371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76874],"class_list":["post-1308380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1308380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1308371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1308380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1308380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}