Russian soldier who killed 7 comrades with grenade given 23-year sentence

A Russian soldier was sentenced to 23 years in a maximum security penal colony by a military court on Wednesday for killing seven soldiers from another unit when he threw a grenade into an army barrack, state news agency TASS reported.

Dmitry Lobovikov, a sergeant from the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals, was found guilty of multiple counts of murder, illegal possession of explosive devices and the deliberate destruction of property by explosion. He was also fined 70,000 rubles (€700) and stripped of his military rank.

A heavily intoxicated Lobovikov threw a grenade into a barrack in Russia’s Belgorod region in January 2023, after allegedly attempting to reprimand the troops for their poor behaviour, state-affiliated daily RBC reported.

The grenade detonated flammable gas cylinders, killing seven people and injuring 16 others.

At the trial, Lobovikov’s lawyers requested the court acquit their client of all charges, claiming that he had had no intention of killing his comrades, blaming the incident on “stupidity and alcohol”.

Lobovikov’s lawyers argued that the grenade had slipped out of their client’s hands when he lost consciousness after mixing sedatives with alcohol. While the jury ultimately found him guilty, they did also note that he was “deserving of leniency”.