The district military court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don today sentenced eight defendants to life in prison for carrying out a terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge in 2022, TASS reported, BTA reported.
At its first hearing of the trial, held on February 12 of this year, the court decided to hear the case behind closed doors, and a lawyer announced that all eight defendants did not admit their guilt.
"The court set the defendants' guilty plea and sentencing them to life imprisonment," the Rostov-on-Don court stated in its conclusion, specifying that the convicts will spend the first years in prison.
The court found that the deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk formed an organized group to carry out the attack on the Crimean Bridge in 2022, in which the defendants and other unidentified persons participated, TASS notes.
Malyuk and his accomplices prepared the production of explosive materials on the territory of Ukraine, under the guise of producing polyethylene construction foil. The members of the group managed to transport the explosives from the port of Odessa through Bulgaria to Georgia, and then to Armenia and the Crimean Bridge in a truck driven by an unsuspecting driver. When the truck passed over the bridge on October 8, 2022, the explosive device was activated and as a result of the explosion, the driver and 4 other people in a car moving next to the truck died.