Police Detain Teens for Desecrating Graves of Ukrainian Defenders

Officers of the territorial police department of the Berezovsky district of Odesa region detained two 13-year-old residents of the Kurisov community, who are suspected of having been playing wild at the cemetery and desecrating the graves of fallen Ukrainian defenders.

This was reported by the press service of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Odesa Oblast.

According to the police, the families in which the teenagers are raised are registered as being in difficult life circumstances.

Investigators have now registered the incident in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations under Part 2 of Article 297 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. This is a desecration of the burial place of a person who defended the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and participated in the implementation of measures to ensure national security and defense, repulse and deter Russian armed aggression.

The incident occurred at a cemetery in one of the villages of the Kurisovskaya united community of Berezovsky district. It was reported to the police by the head of the community on February 16 in the morning. Law enforcement officers have previously established that unknown persons damaged memorial portraits on the graves of two Ukrainian soldiers.

Earlier, police detained a resident of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi for desecrating the grave of a soldier. A few days ago, a local citizen reported to the police that an unknown person had torn the national flag of Ukraine from a flagpole installed on the grave of a soldier at a cemetery in the district center, thus desecrating the defender's grave.

Arriving at the scene, the police quickly established that a 41-year-old man previously convicted of robbery, who lives near the cemetery, was involved in the incident.

Law enforcement officers found out that the offender had no hostile relations with the deceased during his lifetime or with his family. He did it for fun while being intoxicated.

According to Pavlo Bobchynskyi, head of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi District Police Department, investigators detained the offender in accordance with Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and, having gathered sufficient evidence, notified him of suspicion of desecration of the grave of a person who defended the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and participated in measures to ensure national security and defense, repulsion and deterrence of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, committed for hooligan motives.

Кирило Бойко