'Historic precedent' — Lithuania to prosecute Russian POW for suspected war crimes in Ukraine
Ukraine handed over a Russian prisoner of war to Lithuania for criminal prosecution for war crimes, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said on Oct. 31.
This marks the first time since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion that Ukraine has handed over a Russian prisoner to a foreign country for criminal prosecution, setting what Kravchenko called a "historic and important precedent for the entire international justice system."
The Vilnius District Court, at the request of the Lithuanian prosecutor's office on Oct. 30, remanded the suspected Russian soldier into custody for three months.
The suspect was a senior sailor in the Russian military police who was captured by Ukrainian forces near the village of Robotyne in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
The man is suspected of being involved in the torture of civilians in Melitopol.
One of his victims was a Lithuanian citizen who was in the city, which has been under Russian occupation since March 2022, on private business and had no connection to the military operations.
The investigation said the suspect was involved in the unlawful detention, torture, and inhumane treatment of civilians and prisoners of war. The torture took place on the territory of a local airfield.
Together with other Russian soldiers, he beat prisoners, tortured them with electric shocks, kept them in metal safes, strangled them, and psychologically pressured them, the National Police said.
The Russian soldier has been charged in Lithuania with war crimes, torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty, and violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"For what he has done, he could end up in prison for life," Kravchenko wrote on Telegram.
