2 Ukraine soldiers charged with killing pro-Russia civilians
Ukraine has charged two government forces with killing two civilians in the eastern Ukrainian province of Luhansk.
According to pro-Kiev officials in the Donetsk prosecutor's office on Wednesday, the two soldiers were accused of committing premeditated murder, for which they may be sentenced to over seven years in jail and even life in prison.
The lawsuit came two days after the victims, a 77-year-old mother and her 45-year-old daughter, were murdered in their own house with machine gun fire over their alleged support for the cause of pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine.
The cold-blooded crime was carried out in the pro-Russian controlled part of the restive region of Luhansk.
"It has been established that the servicemen entered the house of the victims, whom they suspected of separatist sympathies, and killed them with machine gun fire," read the statement issued by the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office.
The identities of the soldiers have not been revealed so far, but reports said they were both in their 20s.
The Kiev government has come under fire by international rights groups over its adoption of intimidation tactics such as torture against pro-Russia forces during the deadly conflict in the east of the country.
The conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine after people in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea voted for reunification with Russia in March 2014. The situation exacerbated after Kiev dispatched troops to the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in April 2014 in an attempt to quell pro-Russians there.
The crisis has so far claimed the lives of at least 6,500 people and has left over a million displaced, the United Nations says.
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