\n Two Russian soldiers were both sentenced to more than 11 years in jail on Tuesday after a Ukrainian court found them guilty of firing artillery at civilian areas.\n<\/p>\n
\n The verdict comes one week after a court in the capital Kyiv handed a 21-year-old Russian solider a life sentence for killing a civilian -- the country's first judicial reckoning on Russia's invasion.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alexander Bobykin and Alexander Ivanov, the servicemen convicted on Tuesday in the central region of Poltava, were on trial for violating norms and customs of warfare.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The Kotelevsky District Court in the Poltava region sentenced them to 11 years and six months in prison,\" the Ukrainian prosecutor general said in a statement on social media.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her office distributed a blurred picture of two men with shaved heads wearing casual clothing and sitting in a transparent box for defendants in the courtroom.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ukrainian news agency Interfax reported that both defendants had pleaded guilty to firing Grad missiles on two villages in the north-eastern Kharkiv region -- Kozacha Lopan and Veterynarne -- in the early days of the war.\n<\/p>\n
\n It said their legal defence had requested a more lenient sentence, claiming the soldiers had been following orders and acting under duress.\n<\/p>\n
\n All three verdicts against Russian servicemen in the last week, which followed short trials, are expected to be the first in a wave of trials.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ukraine says it has opened thousands of investigations into alleged war crimes since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rights organisations have voiced hope that Ukrainian trials of Russian soldiers will be impartial and transparent.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ukraine's prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova announced this week the country's first rape case, allegedly committed by a Russian soldier -- currently at large.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the May 23 conviction in Kyiv of 21-year-old Vadim Shishimarin, the Kremlin said it had not received any information about his case during his trial.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The fate of every Russian citizen is of paramount importance to us,\" it said last week.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ukrainian lawyers representing Russian servicemen say they have not been in contact with legal or military officials in Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Russian soldiers were both sentenced to more than 11 years in jail on Tuesday after a Ukrainian court found them guilty of firing artillery at civilian areas. The verdict comes one week after a court in the capital Kyiv handed a 21-year-old Russian solider a life sentence for killing a civilian -- the country's […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-93124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n