You're reading: RFE/RL: Russian court rules that mass WWII killings in Pskov region were genocide

RFE/RL: Russian court rules that mass WWII killings in Pskov region were genocide

Published Aug. 27, 2021. Updated Aug. 27 at 6:18 pm

A picture taken on August 5, 2018 shows a grave of a person killed in 1937 in the Sandarmokh, a memorial site in a pine forest in the Karelia region, at the Russian and Finnish border, where mass graves from the 1930's and bodies from 1940's have been found.

Photo by AFP

A court in Russia’s northwestern region of Pskov has ruled that the mass killings of Soviet citizens in the area during World War II were an act of genocide.

According to the court ruling on August 27, 75,000 civilians and 377,000 military personnel were killed during the war in the Pskov region, which at the time was divided between the Leningrad and Tver regions.