Two courts, one day: sentences tied to the war's prisoners
On 6 November 2025, courts in Zaporizhzhia and occupied Donetsk handed down sentences involving captured and foreign fighters.
What did justice for prisoners look like on 6 November 2025? Two courts, on opposite sides of the front line, passed sentences that bore on the treatment and prosecution of people taken captive in the war.
A conviction in Zaporizhzhia
A court in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, found a Russian soldier guilty of killing a surrendered Ukrainian soldier in January 2024 and sentenced him to life imprisonment. As reported at the time, it was the first conviction of a Russian soldier for killing a captured Ukrainian since the war began. A separate Ukrainian-language report of the same day described the case as a life sentence for a Russian soldier held as a prisoner, over an incident in Zaporizhzhia region in 2024 involving a Ukrainian soldier who had surrendered.
The case sits within the category of war crimes, which include the killing and torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Prosecuting such acts in a domestic court is one way Ukraine has pursued accountability for them.
A sentence in occupied Donetsk
The same day, a court in Russian-occupied Donetsk sentenced two Colombians to 13 years in prison for fighting with Ukraine's armed forces. They had been detained while travelling home through Venezuela and were transferred into Russian custody.
The occupied territories are, in Ukrainian law, defined as temporarily occupied. The United Nations Human Rights Office has reported severe human rights violations there, including arbitrary detentions. A Russian-run court sentencing foreign nationals who served in Ukraine's forces took place in that setting.
Two verdicts, two settings
The two rulings of 6 November 2025 differ in who stood accused and in which authority held the courtroom. In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian soldier faced a Ukrainian court over the killing of a man who had surrendered. In Donetsk, foreign volunteers on Ukraine's side faced a court operating under Russian occupation and received 13-year terms.
Taken together, they show how questions of captivity, surrender and combatant status were being handled in courtrooms on both sides of the line by that date. The Zaporizhzhia verdict, by its own description, marked a first for the war, and the Donetsk sentences showed the fate of those who ended up in Russian custody far from the front where they had fought.
