A Ukrainian sentenced to life in prison for collaborating in the Russian attack that killed the writer Victoria Amelina

A Ukrainian court has sentenced a resident of Kramatorsk to life imprisonment for the crime of high treason as a collaborator in the Russian attack that ended the life of Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina and 12 other people in 2023. An Iskander ballistic missile hit a pizzeria in Kramatorsk, in the east of the country, on June 27. In the sentence, handed down this Thursday, the judge considered it proven that the man, of Ukrainian nationality, provided the invading forces with the location of the restaurant and the information that the military was concentrated there.

Amelina died a few days later, on July 1, from injuries sustained in the attack. The bombing injured another 64 people. Along with the author were the Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince, the also Colombian Sergio Jaramillo, and the journalist Catalina Gómez at the Ria pizzeria.

According to the evidence provided by the prosecution, the convicted man, Volodymyr Sinelnik, was recruited by the enemy to provide information about the presence of the Ukrainian army in the city. The man, according to the accusation, detected that military vehicles were gathered in front of the restaurant and that the place was frequented by soldiers. In Kramatorsk there are few open commercial establishments, be they restaurants or supermarkets, and the majority of customers are military, although it is also common to see their partners, who visit them when they have permission to rest.

The police found on the convict's mobile phone that he had sent the location and some videos of the pizzeria to a Telegram user, an agent of the Russian intelligence services. Sinelnik, 57 years old and an employee of the municipal gas service, decided to collaborate with the invader for ideological reasons, not for money, according to the Security Services of Ukraine (SSU). Sinelnik asked last February to be exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war to avoid going to prison and moving to Russia, according to Zmina, one of the main Ukrainian NGOs dedicated to the defense of human rights.

The former governor of Donetsk province Pavlo Kirilenko confirmed in July 2022 in an interview in Kramatorsk with EL PAÍS that collaborators with Russia were a serious threat to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Kirilenko estimated that half of the population who had decided to stay in the province, despite the proximity of the fighting, were supporters of Russian annexation.

Zmina focuses her work on documenting Russian war crimes but also on reporting violations of the rights of Ukrainian citizens during the war. A Zmina report presented in October 2023 warned that almost 8,000 people had been accused of collaborating with the enemy, and that there are hundreds of cases in which the rights of those accused are violated. The vast majority of trials are against people who have spread Russian propaganda.

The SSU regularly communicates accusations of Ukrainian collaboration with the invader similar to the one that led Sinelnik to be sentenced. On March 28, the police announced the arrest of a 22-year-old man from the city of Dnipro on suspicion of having provided information about an army office and the military hospital in this city to the Russian Security Services (FSB). As evidence, the SSU shared images of a chat in which the young man supposedly provided information to his contact at the FSB.

The SSU also announced on March 27 the arrest of two men in kyiv allegedly recruited in January by the FSB to provide information for upcoming attacks against energy targets, on the telecommunications network and against members of the General Staff of the Ukrainian army.

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