Prosecutor's office: Russian soldiers who killed civilians, including well-known children's writer, identified

Two Russian soldiers who killed at least four civilians in Kharkiv Oblast around the beginning of the full-scale invasion, including the well-known children's writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, were identified by the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, according to a post on Nov. 14.

The two soldiers, whom the Prosecutor General's Office said are Ukrainian natives of Luhansk Oblast, learned the Vakulenko lived in the then-occupied town of Kapytolivka. Aware that Vakulenko had pro-Ukrainian views, the two soldiers interrogated him twice, kidnapping him and killing him the second time. His body was found in a mass grave outside of Izium.

In addition, the two soldiers are accused of abducting three other civilians, including a veteran of the Donbas war, holding them in a cellar and torturing them. Two of them were eventually shot and killed, and the third was beaten to death.

The two soldiers were declared wanted, the Prosecutor General's Office said. The investigation is ongoing.

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Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Independent is exclusively re-publishing an interview with Iryna Tsilyk prepared by Forum for Ukrainian Studies, a research publication for experts, practitioners, and academics to discuss, explore, reflect upon, develop, and transform international understanding of contempor…

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