Rafael Lusvarghi, a 34-year-old Brazilian citizen living in Ukraine, was sentenced on May 2 to 13 years in prison for fighting against Ukraine for Russian-led separatist forces in the Donbas.
Lusvarghi came to the Donbas by way of Russia in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and started a war in eastern Ukraine that has taken over 13,000 lives in the last five years. He fought against Ukrainian forces in several of the war’s major battles. He frequently appeared in Russian and separatist propaganda, at one point promising to “march to Kyiv and end the war.”
He left the Donbas a year later, in 2015, and went to Brazil. After that, his story got quite bizarre.
Lusvarghi returned to Ukraine in 2016, allegedly lured by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and was arrested at the airport upon arrival. He was accused of terrorism and sentenced to 13 years in jail in January 2017. However, the Kyiv court soon overturned its own verdict.
Lusvarghi disappeared for a while, until he was discovered living in an Orthodox monastery in Kyiv in spring 2018. Angered that a known separatist fighter was living freely in Kyiv, activists from an ultra-nationalist group captured him and brought him to the SBU headquarters by force. He was then re-arrested.
A year later, Lusvarghi was once again sentenced to prison. On May 2, a court in Pavlograd, a city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, sentenced Lusvarghi to the same prison term he received two years earlier: 13 years. He was found guilty on two charges: fighting for an illegal militant formation and participating in terrorism.
Lusvarghi pleaded guilty on the charges of fighting for an illegal formation, but denied the terrorism charges.
Apart from the prison term, Lusvarghi also has to pay Hr 15,000 ($560) to the state to cover court expenses. The year he spent in pre-trial detention will be included in his prison time. According to Ukrainian law, it will count as two years of prison, bringing his term down to 11 years.
