{"id":613554,"date":"2026-07-31T14:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/613554\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T14:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:30:15","slug":"louth-man-sentenced-by-russia-to-14-years-in-maximum-security-penal-colony-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/613554\/","title":{"rendered":"Louth man sentenced by Russia to 14 years in maximum-security penal colony \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 22-year-old soldier from Drogheda<\/a>, Co Louth<\/a>, who fought for Ukraine<\/a> in Donetsk, has been sentenced by the Russian<\/a> authorities to 14 years\u2019 imprisonment in a maximum-security penal colony.<\/p>\n

Tiernan O\u2019Donovan, who allegedly travelled to Ukraine and joined the Chosen Company of international volunteers in 2023, was convicted in absentia by the supreme court of the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic (DPR) earlier this week.<\/p>\n

He was found guilty under article 359 of the Russian Criminal Code, which relates to the participation of a mercenary in armed conflicts or military actions and carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan had been accused of taking part in military operations against Russian forces near the village of Pervomaiske in Donetsk with the Chosen Company and a reward of nearly \u20ac22,000 has been offered for his capture.<\/p>\n

The Russian prosecutor general\u2019s office alleged that he had arrived in Ukraine in June 2023 before undergoing training and fighting against Russian forces until the spring of 2025.<\/p>\n

It claimed that O\u2019Donovan had been paid more than two million roubles (\u20ac21,875) by the Ukrainian military authorities. The prosecutor also claimed that he had \u201cactively advertised his crimes\u201d on social media.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the supreme court of the DPR found him guilty of the charge and sentenced him in absentia to 14 years\u2019 imprisonment in a maximum-security penal colony, according to a statement from the prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

It added that O\u2019Donovan, who allegedly used the call sign The Irishman, remains on the international wanted list.<\/p>\n

The Chosen Company is a volunteer unit under the command of another Irishman, Ryan O\u2019Leary, which has been fighting for Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

It was previously reported that the unit had volunteers from more than 31 countries, but the majority of its soldiers were US citizens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 22-year-old soldier from Drogheda, Co Louth, who fought for Ukraine in Donetsk, has been sentenced by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,13415,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,23664,15,16,5,550,7,8,2264],"class_list":["post-613554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-drogheda","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-louth","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine-crisis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117015073777949565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}