A Ukrainian court has sentenced two Russian soldiers to a combined 11 and a half years in jail for shelling a town in eastern Ukraine, in the second war crimes verdict since the beginning of the war.
Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov both pleaded guilty to “violating the laws of war” at the Kotelevska district court in central Ukraine last week.
The shelling destroyed an educational facility in the town of Derhachi, but caused no casualties, prosecutors said.
“The guilt of Bobikin and Ivanov has been proven in full,” Judge Evhen Bolybok said.
Both servicemen, described as an artillery driver and a gunner, were captured after crossing the border.
Prosecutors had asked the court to jail the Russian servicemen for 12 years, while the defence asked for leniency, saying the two soldiers had been following orders and repented.
“I am completely guilty of the crimes of which I am accused. We fired at Ukraine from Russia,” Mr Bobikin told the court in proceedings that were streamed live last Thursday.
In a separate case, a Ukrainian court sentenced a Russian soldier to life in prison last Monday for killing an unarmed civilian.
He is said to have carried out a “criminal order” after firing several shots at the victim’s head from an automatic weapon.
Many more such trials are expected as the war progresses, with Vladimir Putin’s troops accused of atrocities and brutalities against civilians across Ukraine.
Russian forces have been accused of killing civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and of repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure including hospitals and a theater in the besieged city of Mariupol that was being used as a shelter by hundreds of civilians.
Representatives of the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, will meet with members of a Joint Investigation Team and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan in The Hague on Tuesday to discuss an ongoing probe into alleged war crimes.
