Surrendered Ukraine Soldiers May Face Death Penalty: Pro-Moscow Official

Hundreds of Ukrainian defenders of the strategic port of Mariupol surrendered this month after holding out in underground tunnels at Azovstal.

Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol may face the death penalty, a pro-Moscow separatist official said Monday.

"The court will make a decision about them," Yuri Sirovatko, the justice minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

"For such crimes we have the highest form of punishment in the DNR - the death penalty.

"All the prisoners of war are on the territory of the DNR," he said, adding that there were around 2,300 soldiers from Azovstal among them.