UKRAINE, KHARKIV OBLAST, Aug 14 — Artem Kulikov, a Russian soldier captured in Ukraine, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of two civilians near Kupiansk, said Vladyslav Abdula, the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Security Service.

In July, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine recorded 286 killed and 1,388 injured casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war — the highest number since May 2022.

According to the investigation, 21-year-old Kulikov was drafted into the Russian army at the end of August 2024 from a prison in Nizhny Novgorod, where he was serving a sentence for robbery.

The Russian army sent a man to Ukraine’s border area, east of the Kharkiv region. During the attack on one of the villages in the Kupiansk district, he and another Russian soldier abducted two locals of the village in helping in the evacuation from the frontline territories.

The Russians tried to get information from the men about the locations of the Ukrainian military. When the men refused, Kulikov shot both of them with an automatic rifle.

Ukrainian troops captured Kulikov in October 2024, during the clashes on the Kupiansk axis.

Abdula said that a Russian soldier provided evidence against his commanders, who gave orders to kill civilians in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

On August 6, prosecutors started an investigation into a Russian soldier shooting a civilian who was walking down the street with a suitcase, trying to evacuate from dangerous areas of Donetsk Oblast.

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