What Geneva Convention Might That Be?

"[The proceedings are nothing but] another sham trial [held for Russia's] own amusement."

"The world must respond to such shameful sham trials of Ukrainian defenders."

"It is obvious to everyone that those who should be in the dock are not those defending themselves but those who initiated the aggression, those who invaded foreign land with weapons, and those who arrived with tanks on the territory of an independent state!"

"Ukrainian prisoners of war are combatants, not criminals! They were fulfilling their duty to the state, protecting its territorial integrity and sovereignty."

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine human rights envoy 

A woman with the words "Free Azov" written on her face attends a rally aiming to raise awareness on the fate of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Kyiv, Ukraine (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

In a military court trial denounced by Kyiv as a sham and a violation of international law, Russia bizarrely convicted 23 captured Ukrainian servicemen on terrorism charges related to the war that the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused. Current or former fighters of the elite Azov brigade make up the personnel held on  trial. Russia had designated the Azov brigade as a terrorist group. Extending the charge of terrorism to any who worked within the brigade whether as cooks or support personnel.

 

The prominent Russian human rights group, Memorial, re-designated the Ukrainian defendants as political prisoners some of whom had been captured in 2022 during fighting in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, defending their country from the Russian invader. Others among the prisoners had been detained while attempting to leave the city once it was overrun by Russian forces, according to Memorial.

 

On Wednesday when the verdict was brought down in the Russian court in the city of Rostov-on-Don, only a dozen prisoners were in attendance. Of those charged, eleven -- including nine women -- had returned to Ukraine through prisoner exchanges and were thus convicted in absentia, while one other defendant had died last year while in custody.

 

Lawyers of Ukrainians captured by Russia during hostilities in Ukraine sit in front of the defendant's cage during a hearing at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. AP Photo

All of the  convicted had been charged with staging a violent coup d'etat and with organizing the activities of a terrorist organization. Russian 'justice' had seen fit to entirely inverse reality; in essence claiming that loyal Ukrainian servicemen in responding to the illegal, internationally criminal armed military invasion of their country were the aggressors, not the invading army engaged in what he Kremlin termed a 'limited military action'. Limited, presumably, in the Kremlin's estimation that the further annexation of Ukrainian territory would take a trifling amount of time and effort.

 

The dozen Ukrainian men remaining in Russian custody will serve their time in maximum security penal colonies, according to the court where they were given prison sentences ranging from 13 to 23 years. The Russian independent news site Mediazona reported that all twelve of the convicted held in Russia are prepared to appeal the verdict.

 

"None of the defendants in the case are accused of any war crimes: they are all being tried for the very fact of serving" in Azov at one time or another, stated Memorial, in their explanatory defence. Ukraine's presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, stated that the trial of combatants amounted to "an official war crime" which would warrant a response from the International Criminal Court. 

 

The defendants testified of abuse they had undergone while behind bars; that they were severely beaten, had suffered broken bones, were interrogated with bags covering their heads, were given food laced through with household chemicals, and were forced under duress to stand all day long while singing the Russian anthem, according to Mediazona. 

Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike in Sumy, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Reuters)