MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/. Courts in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) have handed out long prison terms, including life sentences, to more than 30 Ukrainian militants for crimes against civilians, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, told TASS in an interview.

According to Russia’s chief investigator, as many as 90 criminal probes have been sent to courts in the DPR and the LPR. "Based on the evidence gathered, more than 30 defendants have been sentenced to long prison terms, while some of them have been handed out life sentences," he specified.

Before the two Donbass republics joined Russia, Bastrykin said, there was just a handful of those punished for crimes against civilians. He pledged further efforts to implement the principle of inevitability of punishment and "continue this work."