A military court in Moscow has sentenced seven Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) servicemen to 15 years in prison for their role in the Ukrainian cross-border offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Tuesday.

The defendants, who were found guilty of committing a terrorist act, will spend the first three years of their sentences, which vary from 15 to 16 years, in prison, before being transferred to high-security penal colonies to complete their terms.

According to investigators, the seven soldiers all took part in the invasion of Kursk’s Korenevsky district “to carry out terrorist activities”, which they said included setting up a command post and defensive positions.

The first AFU soldiers to have been captured by Russian troops in the Kursk incursion were sentenced in December, receiving a similar 15 year sentence.

Ukraine’s surprise August incursion into the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, was the first serious Ukrainian offensive carried out on Russian territory during the war so far, and is also the first time since World War II that a part of Russia has been occupied by foreign forces.

The relatively small area, which humiliatingly for Moscow remains under Ukrainian control five months later, is currently the focus of fierce fighting, with Russian forces in the region being bolstered by the arrival of an estimated 11,000 troops from its ally North Korea, and the Ukrainians launching a fresh offensive earlier this month to shore up their hold on Russian soil.