Photos of the rebel surfaced on the internet earlier this week.

A few days ago the internet had chance to see the other side of the war in Ukraine. One of the commanders of a rebel unit, Alexander Nazarchenko, posted a few images of one of his soldiers tied up to a traffic pole in uniform with a sign hung around his neck saying “I am a marauder. I beat up and robbed my countrymen.”

Nayarchenko asked his superiors whether he could take action since he considered offenses his soldier committed to be outrageous. The captured man assaulted one civilian, took his car and relatives money saying he is borrowing the money. The victim called the rebels center and informed them about what had happened which led to the “arrest”.

This form of justice system has become common in almost all rebel held regions. In the center of conflict there are no courts or law enforcement so some individuals find it convenient to target civilians or fellow combatants. Through this leaders of the rebellion want to send a message that they are serious in their goals and they won’t be stopped by greed or personal gain.

After the area was taken by rebels most of the officials loyal to the government in Kiev ran away and as it seems they took as much cash and recourses they could, said the deputy police chief in Lugansk, the second biggest rebel held city in Ukraine. Most of those officials that fled were judges, so now sentences are passed down by prosecutors.

Areas under nominal control of the separatists are now in the process of forming stable police departments in order to prevent any future crimes.

The Donetsk region or now proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has taken this matter into consideration and has now organized a judicial system. The head of its court is Eduard Yakubovsky, so far he has been handling civil, family and crime cases. Another thing he did was cut the number of people employed by the judicial system. Since cash flow is reduced everything works on a small scale model based on what the former Soviet system had.

The Cossack group went a step further, including punishments like whipping and even murder. Semi-militant groups that were always in charge of monitoring Russian outskirts outskirts joined the separatist fight, but not for long time as they started t form their own micro-states.

Everyone taking law in to their hands without permission will be prosecuted warned the rebel officials. Most of Cossack’s groups were forced out of Ukraine, but there is still a few strongholds standing and performing their own justice system.