Court sentences Russian army commander who ordered civilians to be held in basement as human shields

A Russian army commander who ordered civilians to be held in a school basement as human shields during the occupation of the village of Yahidne has been sentenced to 12 years in prison by a court in Chernihiv Oblast.

Source: Office of the Prosecutor General

Details: Early on in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian commander, a captain with the alias Klyon, was stationed in the occupied village of Yahidne in the Chernihiv district. He ordered his subordinates to hold 369 people, including 69 minors, captive in the basement of a school.

The prosecution proved in court that the Russians had used the local residents as human shields. The commander knew that Ukrainian forces would not strike a building where civilians were present, so the Russian troops used them to cover their command post.

Conditions in the basement were inhumane, and ten of the civilians died because they had no access to medical assistance.

The captain was sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison. The court found him guilty of issuing orders entailing the ill-treatment of civilians and violating the laws and customs of war under Articles 28.2 (criminal offence committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy) and 438.1 (violation of the laws and customs of war) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The appeal court upheld the verdict handed down by the court of first instance.

Previously: A Russian serviceman was recently served with a notice of suspicion for illegally detaining and raping a local woman for three days in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

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