Ukrainian special services detained Volodymyr Tsemakh, a former air defense commander in the town of Snizhne in the self-proclaimed 'Donetsk People's Republic' (DPR), at the end of June, BBC News Russian Service reported with reference to Tsemakh's daughter.

After being detained, Tsemakh was smuggled to a territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, from where he was transported to Kyiv, where the Shevchenkivsky District Court ruled on June 29 to arrest him at least for two months, Tsemakh's lawyer Roman Hontarev told BBC.

Tsemakh was indicted under Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 258-3, Part 1, which deals with the establishment of a terrorist group or terrorist organization, BBC said. Therefore, if found guilty, Tsemakh may receive a prison term ranging from eight to fifteen years.

Maria, Tsemakh's daughter, told BBC that her father might have been detained and arrested on the premise that he was "air defense commander" in Snizhne in 2014, near which, according to the international investigators, the missile that downed the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was fired in 2014. However, Maria Tsemakh argued that her father became "air defense commander" in Snizhne only in October 2014, while the MH17 had been downed in July 2014, BBC said.

"When the Boeing was downed, he wasn't a key figure, he was an ordinary serviceman simply staying at a checkpoint," Tsemakh's daughter said.