Russian sentenced to life in Ukraine's 1st war crimes trial

engaging in a scorched-earth approach.”Haidai said the Russians had occupied several towns and cities in Luhansk after indiscriminate, 24-hour shelling and were concentrating forces and weaponry there, bringing in troops from Kharkiv to the northwest, Mariupol to the south, and from inside Russia.The sole working hospital in Sievierodonetck has only three doctors and supplies for 10 days, he said.The Ukrainian military said Russian forces were unsuccessful in their attack on Oleksandrivka, a village outside the city.Ukraine’s parliament voted Sunday to extend martial law and mobilize its armed forces for a third time, until Aug. 23. The 21-year-old sergeant, who has admitted to shooting a Ukrainian man in the head in the Sumy region on Feb. 28, could get life in prison if convicted.Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said her office was prosecuting war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting.In other developments, Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, gave a rare interview to national broadcaster ICTV alongside her husband and said she has hardly seen him since the war began.“Our family, like all Ukrainian families, is now separated,” she said, adding that she speaks to him mostly by phone.“Unfortunately, we cannot sit together, have dinner with the whole family, talk about everything,” she said.Zelenskyy called the interview itself “a date on air,” and the couple, who have two children, joked in front of the journalists.“We are joking, but we are really waiting, like everyone else, to be reunited, like all families in Ukraine who are separated now, waiting for their relatives and friends who want to be together again,” he said.___Becatoros reported from Donetsk.