Russian duo jailed for vandalizing Ukraine war fighters' memorial

A Russian court Monday sentenced two men to jail for vandalising an improvised memorial to Wagner mercenaries and Russian soldiers killed fighting in Ukraine.

Moscow's Tverskoy district court found Daniil Golikov and Andrei Kozlovsky guilty of vandalism and "destruction" of the street memorial near Red Square, after they were pictured kicking over three vases.

Kozlovsky got a three-year sentence while Golikov was sentenced to two-and-a-half years. The pair said they were drunk at the time.

They will serve their sentences in a type of open prison with less harsh conditions than a normal penal colony, the court said.

Featuring flowers, candles, photos of fallen fighters and Russian flags, the memorial is dedicated to pro-Moscow fighters killed in Ukraine.

It first appeared last year when a pro-Kremlin military blogger Maxim Fomin, known as Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed in a Saint Petersburg cafe bomb attack.

It then became a commemorative site for mourners of Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin -- killed in an August 2023 plane crash, two months after staging an armed mutiny against Russia's defence chiefs -- as well as his fighters.

It has since become a more general shrine to those killed in Ukraine.

In a video released by the court, the young men stood side by side while the verdict was read out.

The Mediazona news site, which covers court cases, reported that Golikov is a 28-year-old graduate of Moscow's Higher School of Economics and Kozlovsky, 26, graduated from the foreign ministry's Diplomatic Academy.

According to security camera footage shown in court, the men, weaving unsteadily along the street, kicked over vases of flowers at the memorial on Moscow's Varvarka Street on the night of March 10.

The prosecution valued the cost of the damage at 55,732 rubles ($556).

The men apologised in court and said they were drunk at the time. Their lawyers said they had paid for the damage to be fixed, Mediazona reported.