UKRAINE, KHARKIV OBLAST, Jul. 1 — A court found three Russian soldiers guilty of murdering  a forensic expert and another Izium local during the occupation of the city in 2022. One of the soldiers received a life sentence, while the other two were sentenced to 15 years in prison, reported the Kharkiv regional Prosecutor’s Office.

Izium is a city in the southeast part of the Kharkiv oblast. Russia occupied the city at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, but Ukraine liberated it during the Kharkiv counteroffensive.

According to the prosecutors, a Russian soldier, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, is from the Republic of Dagestan, and he served in the Russian 27th separate guards motorized rifle brigade.

Prosecutors said that, on May 17, 2022, the soldier came to the pathology department of the Izium central hospital and had an argument with a 70-year-old Fedor Zdebskyi, a forensic expert, who stayed in the city during the occupation to help locals.

Zdebskyi said the presence of the Russian army in Izium was illegal and said, “Who called you here? No one was waiting for you here,” reported the Prosecutor’s Office.

In response, the Russian soldier struck the man in the face several times and fired four shots into the ceiling. When Zdebskyi’s colleagues ran out of the room, a Russian soldier shot him.

Also, law enforcement reported that the same soldier was involved in another murder. Along with two soldiers from the occupied by Russians Luhansk region, he abducted a 57-year-old local businessman because of his pro-Ukrainian position. They tortured the man, demanding information about Ukrainian forces, and later brutally beat him. He died because of his injuries. After the de-occupation of Izium, his body was found in a mass grave.

Prosecutors report that they are preparing an appeal regarding soldiers from the occupied Luhansk region who were sentenced to 15 years in prison — they want to request that the soldiers be sentenced to life in prison.

Read more

  • World Bank allocates $600 million for social support in Ukraine 

⚡ The fifth year of the Russian full-scale invasion started, so it’s been four years since most of us here at our Kharkiv-based newsroom became war reporters. Please consider supporting our journalism via a one-time donation — or join our community.