Life sentence and 12 years - Ukraine convicts Russian soldiers for crimes against civilians
Illustrative photo: Russian soldier (Getty Images)
A district court in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region has handed down verdicts against two Russian servicemen, finding them guilty of war crimes committed against civilians, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
The convictions concern soldiers from Russia’s 108th Air Assault Regiment of the 7th Air Assault Division of the Airborne Forces. During the temporary occupation of a village in the Bashtanka district, they abused civilians and killed a resident.
The court found one of the occupiers guilty of violating the laws and customs of war and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The second was convicted on multiple counts and received a life sentence.
Investigators established that on March 21, 2022, Russian troops arrived in the village of Novopetrivka in armored vehicles. They demanded that the village head collect weapons from residents, arms that Russian forces themselves had abandoned during a retreat the previous day.
To avoid endangering fellow villagers, the village head’s husband, a civilian, voluntarily gathered the weapons he found and went to the location specified by the Russian troops. The soldiers seized him and, threatening him with weapons and using force, unlawfully deprived him of his liberty: they bound his hands with plastic ties and held him on their unit’s premises for several hours.
During this time, the man was tortured and subjected to brutal treatment. He was later killed by one of the Russian soldiers.
Russian troops implicated in atrocities in Bucha
In September, reports emerged that British journalists had identified 13 Russian officers and generals allegedly involved in mass war crimes in Bucha.
The individuals were identified through the work of independent lawyers and investigators using open-source intelligence, with confirmations from Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.
In addition to the 13 officers and generals, more than 80 Russian soldiers implicated in the killings of civilians in Bucha have been officially identified. However, many suspects have yet to be conclusively identified.
The full number of victims and the details of numerous crimes remain unknown, with dozens of people still listed as missing. Ukrainian authorities note that several Russian perpetrators involved in the Bucha atrocities have since been killed on the battlefield by Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
