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Russia jails two Ukrainian soldiers for 14 and 15 years over Kursk incursion

Ukrainian servicemen heading for the Kursk region, in Ukraine’s Sumy region near the Russian border, 17 August 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / GEORGE IVANCHENKO

Ukrainian servicemen heading for the Kursk region, in Ukraine’s Sumy region near the Russian border, 17 August 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / GEORGE IVANCHENKO

A Moscow court has sentenced two Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) soldiers to 14 and 15 years in prison respectively for committing an “act of terrorism” by participating in the AFU’s incursion into Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Thursday.

According to the Investigative Committee, Vitaliy Panchenko and Ivan Dmytrakov, who served in the AFU’s 61st Mechanised Brigade, illegally crossed the state border between Ukraine and Russia’s Kursk region on 7 August armed with “automatic and large-calibre firearms, using explosive devices and military equipment” before “repeatedly opening fire to kill both Russian servicemen and civilians”.

The two men also “used physical force and armed threats to forcibly detain three Russian citizens” before transporting them to Ukraine, the Investigative Committee said. According to Russia’s Military Prosecutor’s Office, Panchenko was also involved in the forcible transfer of 11 Russian conscripts to Ukrainian territory, though the Investigative Committee made no mention of this.

Both Panchenko and Dmytrakov were captured by Chechnya’s Akhmat Battalion in mid-August, just a week into the Ukrainian incursion, according to a video made by Akhmat commander Apti Alaudinov.

Panchenko, who was also found guilty of stealing food from a grocery shop in the AFU-occupied city of Sudzha in his own “selfish interest”, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars, while Dmytrakov was sentenced to 14, the Investigative Committee added.

While Russia’s Federal Security Service has charged some 14 foreign journalists in absentia with illegally crossing Russia’s border to film dispatches about the AFU incursion since it began on 6 August, Panchenko and Dmytrakov’s case is thought to be the first sentencing of AFU soldiers for their role in the invasion.

On Wednesday, the exiled council of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol announced that the Russian-installed authorities in occupied Donetsk had sentenced nine AFU troops to between 24 years and life imprisonment for their role in the defence of Mariupol and the Azovstal steel plant during Russia’s siege of the city in spring 2022.

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