Russian soldier suspected of torturing eight Ukrainian energy workers
A Russian soldier has been served with a notice of suspicion over the unlawful detention and torture of eight Ukrainian energy workers, the National Police of Ukraine reported.
The offences took place in the Chernihiv Region (Oblast) during the occupation of the Chernihiv District in February 2022. According to investigators, the men were initially held in the captured village of Ilmivka and later taken to Belarus.
According to the investigation, a team of eight civilian energy workers arrived in the village of Ilmivka in the Chernihiv district on 24 February 2022 to repair power lines. The village was under Russian occupation at the time.
Russian troops stopped the repair crew’s vehicles, threatened the workers with automatic rifles and ordered them to lie on the ground. Investigators said the energy workers were held in that position for six hours.
The men were then taken to a section commander of an anti-aircraft missile platoon of the Russian army.
He forced them to take off their outerwear despite the winter weather, threatened them with weapons and demanded information about their possible links to the Defence Forces of Ukraine.
The energy workers were later handed over to other Russian soldiers, who took them to Belarus. The men were held there until the evening of 28 February 2022. Following their release, they were forced to return home on foot.
Police established that a 37-year-old senior sergeant in the Russian army, who served as a section commander of an anti-aircraft missile platoon, was involved in the crime. According to law enforcement officers, he is a native of the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia.
The man was served with a notice of suspicion of committing a war crime under Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The article carries a penalty of up to 12 years in prison.
The pre-trial investigation continues.
In June this year, a court in the Kherson Oblast found a Russian police officer guilty in absentia of war crimes for torturing detainees in the regional centre during the 2022 occupation.
The convicted man, as specified in the Book of Executioners of the Ukrainian People, is Police Captain Aleksandr Medelskii, a native of the Russian town of Bogotol.
Investigators say the man arrived in occupied Kherson alongside 400 other Russian security personnel to work in an illegally created internal affairs department. Medelskii took part in torturing a former Ukrainian police officer who was abducted from his home in August 2022.
The court ultimately sentenced Medelskii to 10 years in prison for the crime.
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