Belongs to Volunteer Battalion
Pro-Ukrainian fighter sentenced to long term imprisonment
6/20/2023 3:27 p.m
Denis Mouryga belongs to the Aidar battalion, which is fighting on the side of Kiev and is considered illegal in Russia. A Russian court has now sentenced him to many years in prison for planned “terrorist acts”.
A Russian military court has sentenced a member of a Ukrainian volunteer battalion to long prison terms. The court of the southern Russian region of Rostov-on-Don found Denis Mouryga, who has Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, guilty of planned “terrorist acts”. He was sentenced to “16 years in a prison camp,” Russian news agencies quoted the responsible judge as saying.
Mouryga is a member of the Aidar Battalion, which Russia considers illegal and is fighting alongside Kiev. He is accused of having pursued training in order to “commit acts of terrorism”. He was arrested in spring 2022 trying to cross the border in the Rostov region of Russia. According to investigators, Mouryga had been with the battalion since 2015 and had received combat and weapons training there.
The Aidar battalion was formed in 2014 in the Lugansk region of eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces were fighting Moscow-backed pro-Russian separatists. The group was subsequently integrated into the Ukrainian army. Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, the Aidar battalion has fought primarily in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.