The trial is coming to an end in Pavia, Italy of Vitaliy Markiv, a young man with dual Ukrainian and Italian citizenship, who is accused of ‘involvement’ in the death by shelling of 30-year-old Italian photojournalist, Andrea Rocchelli. The latter was killed, together with his Russian interpreter (and rights activist) Andrei Mironov, on May 24, 2014, during the first months of the war in Donbas. Markiv was then serving in Ukraine’s National Guard which Italy is trying to claim was an ‘illegal armed formation’. This bizarre assertion is only one of several concerns about a case which seems disturbingly similar to the ‘trial’ in Russia of Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko in 2016. Since Savchenko was internationally recognized as a political prisoner, there seem compelling grounds for probing the charges against Markiv in Italy.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Halya Coynash: Baffling denial of Donbas war as excuse for trial of Markiv
Ukrainian soldier Vitaliy Markiv was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison on charges of killing Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli on May 24, 2014. Rocchelli was killed during heavy fighting in Slovyansk during the early months of Russia's war against Ukraine. But supporters who have studied the evidence say he's innocent. The Italian photographer's Russian translator, Andrey Mironov, was killed also.
