A Moscow military court has jailed a dozen men accused of an alleged Ukraine-backed plot to assassinate the Kremlin's propaganda television chief for terms of up to 25 years.

The defendants, some of whom were under 18 when they were arrested, were sentenced after a closed-door trial in Moscow.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said the suspects belonged to a neo-Nazi group and had been paid by Ukraine to target Margarita Simonyan, head of the Kremlin-funded RT, a key arm of Vladimir Putin's propaganda regime.

Ukraine has not admitted any involvement in the plot and the allegations have not been independently verified.

Nicknamed 'Goebbels in a skirt', 44-year-old Simonyan was the target of an assassination attempt thwarted in July 2023, the FSB said.

The dozen men were convicted after allegations that their confessions were obtained using torture including electric shocks and strangulation.

Mechanic Mikhail Balashov, 20, was sentenced to 25 years in prison while Yegor Savelyev, 24, was jailed for 15 years after being convicted of attempted murder.

The most lenient sentence handed down was six years. 

According to the FSB the men belonged to neo-Nazi group Paragraph-88 and agreed to act on Ukraine's orders in return for £14,600.

The security agency had also claimed the case involved an effort to kill Ksenia Sobchak, a television presenter, media owner and influencer known as Putin's 'goddaughter'.

However, 44-year-old Sobchak's name later disappeared from the case.

Simonyan, a fervent Putin supporter, has been among the Kremlin's most outspoken advocates of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and is sanctioned by the West.

Lawyers and supporters of several defendants alleged the defendants' confessions were extracted under torture but Russian investigators denied wrongdoing.

Balashov confessed because he had been beaten so badly in police custody that he had no other choice, a witness told Mediazona.

His hands were so bruised and swollen that they looked 'bloated like boxing gloves'.

Savelyev was reportedly tortured with an electric shock device.

The accused were convicted variously of attempted murder, forming and participating in a terrorist organisation, robbery, hooliganism, publicly inciting extremist activity and inciting hatred and enmity on the basis of nationality.