Ukrainian man jailed for life over role in Russian strike on pizzeria
A Ukrainian man who helped Russia target a missile strike on a pizzeria in the eastern city of Kramatorsk last June has been jailed for life.
Thirteen people including the novelist and poet Victoria Amelina were killed when a Russian ballistic missile tore through the popular Ria Pizza restaurant on the evening of 27 June 2023.
“A local resident was sentenced to life imprisonment for guiding the occupiers’ missile attack on the pizzeria in Kramatorsk,” the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said on Thursday.
It said the man was recruited to carry out the task by an intelligence official in the Russian-controlled part of the eastern Donetsk region, who asked him to gather information about the restaurant.
“The convict agreed to the offer. In the city centre, he noticed cars with military licence plates in the car park and military themselves in the restaurant,” it said.
The man then covertly recorded two videos of the site, which he sent to his handler via Telegram before covering up evidence of his actions, it said.
“The man was sentenced to life imprisonment with confiscation of property for high treason,” it added.
Kyiv has waged an intense crackdown on those suspected of having aided and abetted Russian forces since the invasion in February 2022, many in its east and south.
The UN said last year that Ukraine had opened more than 6,600 criminal cases “against individuals for collaboration and other conflict-related crimes” since the war began.
Also on Thursday, Russian drones struck two apartment buildings and a power plant in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, killing four people, as the Kremlin continued to escalate its bombardment of civilian areas.Shahed drones smashed into two apartment buildings in Kharkiv, near the Russian border, which has frequently been targeted. Other drones targeted the power grid.In recent months, Russian forces have stepped up their aerial barrages of Ukraine, hitting urban areas. The approximately 1,000km (620-mile) frontline is largely deadlocked, but Kyiv officials say Moscow’s troops have recently been probing for Ukrainian weaknesses on ahead of an expected large-scale Russian offensive in the summer.The Russian strikes hit a multistorey building in Kharkiv twice in quick succession, killing three first responders, local authorities said. Six people were wounded. Another 14storey building was hit by a drone, killing a 69-year-old woman.Ukrainian officials have previously accused Russia of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles – the first to draw crews to the scene and the second to wound or kill them. Russians used the same method in Syria’s civil war.