A Russian soldier who illegally detained three civilians and killed two of them in Chernihiv Oblast in 2022 was sentenced to life imprisonment, the Prosecutor General's Office reported on Jan. 29.
The report didn’t indicate whether the soldier was sentenced in absentia. Ukrainian investigators have continuously sought to identify and prosecute Russian soldiers who committed war crimes, whether or not they are physically located in Ukraine.
According to the investigation, a group of Russian service personnel, including the convict, who were stationed in Chernihiv Oblast’s village of Haivoron, abducted three male locals on April 1, 2022.
They reportedly held the civilians in a basement for several hours. Later, the convict led the men out, released the oldest one, and shot at the two others, killing them, the prosecutors wrote.
The Russian soldier was found guilty of violating the laws and customs of war combined with intentional murder.
Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has been accompanied by numerous war crimes and atrocities, with Ukrainian prosecutors recording more than 110,000 war crime cases to date.
A senior lieutenant of Russia's tank brigade who shot and killed two civilians near Kyiv Oblast's village of Mriia in 2022 was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia on Jan. 12.
Another Russian soldier who kidnapped a 15-year-old Ukrainian boy near Chernihiv in March 2022 received a 12-year sentence on Dec. 7, 2023.
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