UKRAINE, Apr 5 — The court found a Ukrainian man who directed the Iskander-M that killed Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina and another 12 people in Kramatorsk on June 27, 2023, guilty, reports the General Prosecutor’s Office. The man got a life sentence. 

The court established that the man worked in a gas transmission company. On June 27, 2023, a Russian representative, “the head of an intelligence department” from “internal forces” of so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), asked him to check if Ukrainian troops stayed in RIA PIZZA pizzeria in Kramatorsk. 

The man agreed. In the city center, he noticed cars with military license plates in the parking lot and saw soldiers in a café. He recorded two videos and, at once, sent them over to “the head of intelligence.” The strike on Kramatorsk happened on the same day. 

Iskander-M hit the café and killed 13 people, including four children; injured 64 people, one child among them. Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer and poet, died from her injuries in the hospital in Dnipro on July 1. She was 37. 

The man who helped direct the missile received a life sentence with property confiscation. The court found him guilty of treason (Part 2, Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). He waited for the verdict in detention. 

In the last months of her life, Victoria Amelina, along with Truth Hounds, a human rights organization, was documenting Russian war crimes on the deoccupied territories of Ukraine. In Kapytolivka of Kharkiv Oblast, she found a diary of Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vakulenko whom Russian troops murdered during the occupation of the region.

UPD from Apr 5, 11:11 p.m.: The date of the attack fixed. Russians hit Kramatorsk’s café with missile on June 27, 2023.

UPD from Apr 6, 5:54 p.m.: Added “man” in the headline for clarity.

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