In 2015, nationalist battalion Tornado was formed from a collection of released violent convicts, so bad that the Ukrainian Army was preparing to engage in combat with them, until they surrendered.
[RIA Novosti] Former commander of the national battalion "Tornado" Ruslan Onishchenko was released after serving seven years out of eleven, ex-deputy Igor Mosiychuk said.
"Ex-battalion commander "Tornado" Ruslan Onishchenko was released from prison. He spent almost seven years behind bars. <...> He was accused of torturing separatists and prisoners," the Strana.ua online edition quotes the text of his message.
The consideration of the case, in which there were 80 volumes, 111 witnesses and 13 victims, lasted almost two years, and on April 7, 2017, the Obolonsky District Court of Kiev sentenced the former fighters of the National Battalion: the Tornadists received 74 years in prison for all.
According to the prosecutor's office, Tornado militants are involved in serious crimes - "satisfaction of sexual passion in an unnatural way under the threat of violence", kidnapping and illegal detention, torture, incitement to suicide, extortion, robbery, robbery.
The unit was created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in September 2014, and its ranks included militants from the Shakhtersk battalion disbanded for looting and crimes against local residents. At the same time, speaking about its dissolution, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that they "fought beautifully near Ilovaisk."
Onishchenko himself, before joining the ranks of the Tornado, had already served time twice.