INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian-installed courts in Ukraine's eastern regions sentenced five Ukrainian soldiers to lengthy prison terms, Russia's Investigative
Committee said Monday."The court sentenced (Andrey) Klementovich, (Artur) Sivitsky and (Ivan) Melnikovich to 20 years' imprisonment each, to
be served in a strict-regime penal colony," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.It published footage of three men handcuffed
population" and "attempted murder."The court alleged the three soldiers fought in Mariupol, which was captured by Russian forces in May 2022
after a devastating siege, and had been "preventing civilians from leaving the city using the humanitarian corridor."In Luhansk, east
Ukraine, serviceman Bogdan Smaga was sentenced to 17 years for wounding civilians, according to the same source.And another Ukrainian
soldier, Igor Lemeshev, was jailed for 20 years for the shelling of a residential area, during which a civilian was killed.Russia now claims
Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions as its own, along with Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south, which it claimed to annex after
a formal ceremony last September.
