U.S. charges four Russian soldiers with abducting and torturing American citizen in Ukraine

The U.S. Justice Department has formally charged four Russian soldiers involved in the invasion of Ukraine, who are accused of abducting and torturing an American citizen, according to the department’s press service.

According to the investigation, four Russian officers abducted a U.S. citizen from his house in Ukraine’s Kherson region in April 2022. It’s not clear whether he had any connection to the Ukrainian army.

The department’s statement says that the Russian soldiers illegally held the American citizen for a period of at least 10 days. During this time, they beat him, interrogated him, and threatened to kill him, as well as conducted a mock execution.

The U.S. Justice Department says that the Russian soldiers were charged with three war crimes — unlawful confinement, torture, and inhuman treatment — and one count of conspiracy to commit war crimes. The maximum penalty for these crimes is life imprisonment.

The department adds that this was the first use of a U.S. law aimed at prosecuting those who commit war crimes against American citizens abroad.

In the fall of 2022, the Ukrainian Center for Investigative Journalism wrote that Suren Mkrtchyan, one of the soldiers charged by the U.S. Justice Department, was involved in the abduction and rape of civilians during the Russian occupation of the Dnipro River’s left bank.