Russia uses lawless 'terrorism' ruling to pass huge sentences against Ukrainian POWs for defending Mariupol

In the last week alone, Russia’s notorious Southern District Military Court has sentenced two Ukrainian prisoners of war – Vladyslav Shpak and Andriy Sopuliak to 21 and 19 years, respectively, for serving in Ukraine’s Armed Forces and defending their country.  The two men who were taken prisoner while defending Mariupol against the Russian invaders were charged under Russian legislation with ‘terrorism’ on the basis of a flawed ruling by Russia’s politically subservient ‘Supreme court’.  All of these grotesque ‘trials’ are not only in violation of international law on the treatment of prisoners of war.  They also violate fundamental principles of law, since the ruling enabling such cynical prosecutions was passed long after the Ukrainian defenders had fallen into Russian captivity.

The Russian supreme court issued its ruling banning the Azov Regiment on 2 August 2022.  Although the Azov Battalion had been formed as a voluntary formation in 2014, it became part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in 2015, and all members of the Regiment are military servicemen.  The ruling, therefore, was internationally condemned and widely understood as aimed at persecuting Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol, many of whom were serving in the Azov Regiment.

The excuse was, and remains, pitiful, given that nobody has revoked the fundamental principle that the law is not retroactive.  Not officially, anyway, since almost all of these ‘trials’ and horrific sentences are against members of the Azov Regiment who were taken prisoner in May 2022.

Even Russian ‘judges’ know that the law is not retroactive, yet the supreme court ruling is standardly cited as grounds for surreal charges, of ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’ under Article 205.4 of Russia’s criminal code and of ‘undergoing training in carrying out terrorist activities’.

Although the ban on the Aozv Regiment was made public immediately, the ruling itself was kept secret for almost three years.  It was only on 27 June 2025 that the Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project were able to publish the ruling   The fact that the ruling could no longer be concealed had proven, Memorial wrote, to be the unexpected benefit of the extraordinary criminal charges laid against Memorial Head, Sergei Davidis. As reported, he was charged in January 2025 with ‘justifying terrorism’ for reposting a Memorial statement which rightly identified  as political prisoners 24 Ukrainian POWs facing huge sentences on ‘terrorism’ charges for their connection with the Azov Regiment .  Since the only ‘justification’ for the charges against the men and women (some of whom were employed as cooks) was that they were serving in the Azov Regiment, the case material included a copy of the supreme court ruling.

Memorial commented that the reason for the 2 August 2022 ruling having been kept secret probably lay in the ‘glaring weakness of the arguments given.  If there is anything interesting in the ruling, it is purely that it yet again demonstrates the contempt for the law at its very basis, as well as at the basis of other similar rulings.  As reported here, Russia has since used the Southern District Military Court to pass similar rulings declaring the Aidar Battalion and Donetsk Battalion, both of which are part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, ‘terrorist’ organizations.

Virtually all of the prisoners of war accused solely of involvement in the Azov Regiment were taken prisoner in April or May 2022.  There is, unfortunately, every reason to assume that they were subjected to horrific forms of torture.  Indeed, in the most prominent of these ‘Azov trials’ to date, that involving 24 prisoners of war, one of the men, 55-year-old Oleksandr Ishchenko died in SIZO [remand prison], almost certainly as a result of the beatings and torture to which he was being subjected. 

See: Russia’s ‘Azov trial’ – one Ukrainian POW tortured to death, 23 given monstrous sentences

Torture is often applied in order to extract ‘confessions’ which are then showed in Russian propaganda videos.  There are, therefore, no grounds for believing the standard claim made by the Russians that any specific POW fully admitted the charges.

Vladyslav Shpak

Shpak is 31 and originally from Melitopol.  He was sentenced on 8 August 2025 to 21 years’ harsh-regime’ [or maximum-security] imprisonment, with the ‘terrorism’ charges based solely on his membership of the Azov Regiment which the Russian ‘investigators’ claimed began in June 2020.

He was among the forces who were sent to Mariupol after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  He took part in the defence of the Azovstal Steelworks, and was forced to surrender on 14 May 2022 – two and a half months before Russia’s supreme court issued its flawed ruling.

Andriy Sopuliak

On 11 August 2025, 30-year-old Ukrainian POW Andriy Sopuliak was sentenced by the same Southern District Military Court in Rostov to 19 years’ harsh-regime’ / maximum-security imprisonment.  The above-mentioned charges of ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’ (Article 205.4) and of ‘undergoing training in carrying out terrorist activities’ (Article 205.3) were based solely on his role, as a member of the Azov Regiment, in the defence of Mariupol.  He was one of the defenders who held out at Azovstal under 20 May 2022.

Dmytro Shanaiev was sentenced on 1 July 2025 on the same charges to 20 years’ harsh-regime imprisonment.

In reporting these sentences, the prosecutor or court’s press service often claim that the prisoner of war “fully admitted guilt”.  As well as the fact that any such admission is likely to have been obtained through torture, there is in these ‘trials’ an additional nuance.  Strip away the verbiage, the manipulation and lies, and Russia’s ‘trials’ of prisoners of war are based solely on the POWs’ legitimate defence of their country as members of the Azov Regiment.