MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/. Russia’s Supreme Court upheld the verdict against two Ukrainian nationalists Nikolay Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh convicted for taking part in combat actions in Chechnya, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"The court ruled to leave the decision of the Supreme Court of Chechnya unchanged, and to reject the complaint of the defense lawyers," the chair of the judicial panel said.

The lawyers had asked to overturn the sentence and acquit the Ukrainians. The defendants, who took part in the hearing via a video linkup from the detention facility, said they had given evidence under torture and the procedures were carried out in violation of the law.

In late May, a court in Grozny sentenced the two members of the UNA-UNSO Ukrainian nationalist organization to long prison terms on charges of participation in combat actions on the territory of Chechnya in 1994 and 1995. Karpyuk was sentenced to 22.5 years and Klyh to 20 years in jail, respectively.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said earlier that in December 1994 radically-minded members of the UNA-UNSO group created armed groups in Ukraine for participation in armed conflict in Chechnya, in the North Caucasus, jointly with the gangs headed by Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basayev and other militants.

Between December 1994 and January 1995, Karpyuk and Klykh together with other gangs’ members took an active part in clashes with Russian servicemen in the territory of the presidential palace, the Minutka Square and the Grozny railway station. They killed about 30 servicemen and wounded at least 13 others.