Russia jails Ukrainian soldier for 26 years over murder

MOSCOW — A court in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine sentenced a Ukrainian soldier to 26 years in prison for allegedly killing a civilian during Moscow's 2022 siege of the port city of Mariupol.

Russia took hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers captive during the battle for Mariupol at the start of its 2022 offensive, in one of the most brutal battles of the conflict.

The Russian army razed Mariupol to the ground before it fell under Moscow's control in May 2022.

Russia has since handed several Ukrainian citizens heavy sentences in secret trials, with Kyiv and international rights groups saying the practice defies the norms on the treatment of prisoners of war.

The supreme court in occupied Donetsk sentenced the 22-year-old soldier to 26 years in a strict-regime penal colony, the TASS news agency reported, giving the Russian variant of his name -- Mikhail Shvets.

It said the man served as a driver in the Azov battalion, a Ukrainian unit banned as a "terrorist group" in Russia.

TASS reported the soldier in March 2022 stabbed a peaceful civilian in the neck in a shop after a fellow soldier had shot at the man, who died at the scene.

It found the soldier guilty of murder in an organised group and motivated by political and ideological hatred.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war throughout the conflict.