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

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Prosecutor's office: Russian soldiers who killed civilians, including well-known children's writer, identified
A portrait of murdered Ukrainian children's writer Volodymyr Vakulenko and a book written by him in Braille stand on the table next to a cross on Dec. 6, 2022 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Viacheslav Mavrychev/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

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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Nate Ostiller

News Editor

Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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