War in Ukraine: a Kramatorsk resident sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing a Russian strike on a restaurant

Guilty of “high treason.” A resident of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine has been sentenced to life in prison for orchestrating a Russian strike on a restaurant in the city, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said on Thursday. On June 27, 2023, a Russian ballistic missile killed 13 people during dinner, including four children and the writer Victoria Amelina, and wounded 64 others at the very popular Ria Pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, which was especially praised by the military.

“A resident was sentenced to life imprisonment for leading a missile attack by the invaders on a pizzeria in Kramatorsk,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. According to the same source, the man, whose identity has not been revealed, was “recruited” by Russia. His task was to confirm the “presence of Ukrainian military” in the restaurant. For this purpose, he “recorded two videos, which he immediately sent to his interlocutor” in the Telegram messenger, the prosecution said.

Ukraine is tracking collaborators

A few days after the attack, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky spoke about the arrest of a man, introducing him as “the person who coordinated this terrorist attack.” However, it was not immediately possible to know Thursday whether it was the same person.

During the two years of the Russian invasion, Ukraine sought to bring to justice anyone who collaborated with Russian forces, especially in territories occupied for a time by Moscow and then retaken by Kyiv’s forces. At the beginning of the year, the Prosecutor General’s Office registered more than 7,000 cases of cooperation and thousands more on similar charges. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as of December 2023, 941 verdicts have already been issued in Ukraine in cases of cooperation.