A Russian court has sentenced two Ukrainian citizens to more than 20 years in prison over an attempted assassination of a Russian-installed official in occupied Ukraine, state media reported Thursday.
Yury Domanchuk and Vitaly Skakun were arrested in December 2022 shortly after an explosion injured Vitaly Bulyuk — the Kremlin-backed deputy governor of southern Ukraine’s partially occupied Kherson region — and killed his driver.
On Thursday, Russia’s Southern Military Garrison Court in the city of Rostov-on-Don found the two Ukrainian men guilty of terrorism and arms trafficking charges, according to the state-run TASS news agency.
The court sentenced Skakun to 24 years in prison, while Domanchuk received a 23-year prison sentence.
Domanchuk was accused of supplying an anti-personnel mine to Skakun, who was said to have placed it on Bulyuk’s car and detonated it when the Russian-installed official approached the vehicle.
Russian authorities said the two men were acting in coordination with Ukrainian security services.
Prosecutors had requested life sentences for both men.
Car bombings, shootings and poisoning attempts against Russian-installed officials in occupied Ukraine have risen in the months since the Kremlin claimed to have annexed the Ukrainian territories.