Kyiv's Obolonsky district court has sentenced former head of the disbanded Tornado taskforce police squad of the chief department of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine in Luhansk region Ruslan Onyschenko, his deputy Mykola Tsukur and six more members of the squad to long imprisonment, and suspended sentences for more four members.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that Onyschenko was sentenced to 11 years in jail, Tsukur – nine years, Belarusian citizen Daniil Lyashuk – 10 years, Ilya Kholod nine years and a half, Borys Hulchuk, Maksym Hlebov and Mykyta Kust – nine years each, and Anatoliy Plamadiala – eight.

Yuriy Shevchenko, Roman Ivash, Andriy Demchuk and Mykyta Svyrydovsky were sentenced to five years in jail with the three year probation period for Shevchenko and two years for the rest three Tornado squad members.

The 'Savchenko' law (the law on improving the procedure for counting preliminary detention as part of the term of sentence) applied to these persons.

Those with suspended sentences are to wear ankle monitors and inform authorized agencies about their place of registration.

In June 2015, eight people, including seven members of the Tornado special patrol police squad, were detained in Luhansk region. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced then that he had signed an order to disband the squad.

Kyiv's Obolonsky district court has been considering the Tornado case since the end of 2015.