The Security Service of Ukraine has charged two Russian judges over illegal verdicts against Ukrainian POWs
The Security Service of Ukraine has charged two more Russian judges who issued illegal sentences against Ukrainian servicemen taken prisoner.
The judges in question are Gurgen Dovlatbekyan and Artem Shalayev of the Southern District Military Court of the Russian Federation.
According to the investigation, in November and December 2024, they sentenced two members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to 18 years in prison each. Both defenders were part of a brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine and participated in the defense of Mariupol at the start of the full-scale invasion.
The investigation determined that the judges staged a pseudo-judicial process and brought false charges against the Ukrainian servicemen to send them to Russian prisons. According to the SBU, this constitutes a gross violation of international humanitarian law, under which prisoners of war cannot be prosecuted for participating in hostilities.
The suspects have been charged in absentia under Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine—war crimes, specifically violations of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War dated August 12, 1949.
Since both suspects are on the territory of the aggressor state, measures are ongoing to locate and bring them to justice. Procedural oversight is conducted by the Office of the Prosecutor General.
Previously, the SBU announced charges against a Kharkiv woman who lured police officers into a terrorist attack in Lviv. The SBU and police have also dismantled networks selling captured weaponry.
