Collected photo

MOSCOW, Dec 24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Russian-backed court in occupied Ukraine on Wednesday sentenced a Colombian man to 19 years in prison for fighting for Kyiv's army.

Moscow has jailed several foreign fighters that its troops have captured in eastern Ukraine, prosecuting them as mercenaries, not as prisoners of war protected under the Geneva Convention.

In a statement, Russia's Prosecutor General said the Supreme Court in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region had sentenced a man it named as Oscar Mauricio Blanco Lopez to 19 years in jail.

It said the man, whose age it gave as 42, had arrived in Ukraine in May 2024 to sign-up to the Ukrainian army and had been "taken prisoner by Russian servicemen" in December 2025.

The court published a video showing him standing behind metal bars, expressionless, as the verdict was read out.

Last week, the same court sentenced a British man to 13 years in prison, also for fighting for Ukraine.