A Russian is charged over the fatal stabbing of 2 Ukrainian soldiers in Germany

BERLIN — A Russian man who supported his country's war in Ukraine has been charged with murder over the fatal stabbing in Germany earlier this year of two wounded Ukrainian soldiers who were recovering from operations there, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The 57-year-old suspect, whose name wasn't released in line with German privacy rules, was arrested shortly after the stabbing in the small Bavarian town of Murnau on April 27.

Prosecutors in Munich said the suspect and the two victims knew each other loosely from previous meetings. On the day of the stabbing, the three men were drinking together and argued about the situation in Ukraine, “as a result of which the accused felt that his national pride was hurt,” they said in a statement.

The suspect “decided to kill the two strongly intoxicated Ukrainians in a surprise attack,” prosecutors added, and fetched a knife from his nearby apartment. One of the Ukrainians was killed immediately and the other died later of his injuries.

Prosecutors said that “as a supporter of an exaggerated Russian nationalism, (the suspect) supports unreservedly the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.”

The two Ukrainians had been brought to Germany for treatment after being wounded in the war. They had undergone operations at a hospital in Murnau and were recovering in the town. Both were significantly “physically limited” as a result of the operations, prosecutors said.

Germany has become one of Ukraine's leading supporters in the war since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022 and is Kyiv's second-biggest weapons supplier after the United States.

A state court in Munich will now have to decide whether and when the case will go to trial.