The United States charged four pro-Russian soldiers with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American national in Ukraine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the charges against the four “Russia-affiliated military personnel” were the first to be brought under a US war crimes statute passed by Congress nearly 30 years ago.
Garland, speaking to reporters, said Russian forces in Ukraine had committed “atrocities on the largest scale in any European armed conflict since the Second World War.”
“As the world has witnessed the horrors of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, so has the United States Department of Justice,” he said. “The Justice Department will work for as long as it takes to pursue accountability and justice for Russia’s war of aggression.”
According to the indictment, two of those charged — Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, 45, and Dmitry Budnik — were commanding officers of military units of the “Russian Armed Forces and/or the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.”
The two others charged in the indictment brought in a federal court in Virginia were lower-ranking military personnel, identified by only their first…
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