A Russian tank crewman will stand trial for shooting at a car and killing the driver near Bucha

An indictment has been filed against a mechanic-driver from a tank company of the 212th Training Center of the Russian Federation’s Eastern Military District, who shot and killed a civilian on the Kyiv–Chop highway in March 2022. According to the investigation, the occupier fired more than 60 rounds at a car traveling toward Zhytomyr, then finished off the wounded driver with shots to the head and set the car on fire along with the body. 

This is stated in a statement by Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.

Law enforcement officials established that the soldier saw the car’s civilian status and faced no threat from the driver, yet committed premeditated murder. The evidence includes intercepted conversations in which the suspect effectively confesses to the crime, as well as eyewitness accounts of the tragedy. This case has become yet another officially documented war crime committed by the Russian Federation during the occupation of the Kyiv region.

The crime took place on a critically important evacuation route between the villages of Mila and Berezivka, where occupying forces systematically attacked convoys of civilians. Ruslan Kravchenko emphasized that no combat operations were taking place in this sector at the time of the killing. The Russian serviceman now faces a trial in absentia for violating the laws and customs of war, combined with intentional murder.

In the Khabarovsk Krai of the Russian Federation, a general implicated in crimes in Bucha was blown up.

Earlier, the National Police of Ukraine, under the procedural guidance of the prosecutor’s office, identified five Russian servicemen implicated in the shootings of civilians during the occupation of Bucha in 2022.