In reality, the murderers are two brothers of Belarusian origin, and were pardoned by Lukashenko back in 2021.
The news that two citizens of Ukraine were allegedly sentenced to death in Belarus for the brutal murder of a teacher is spreading rapidly online. One of these publications was shared more than 220 times on the X social network (Twitter) — users expressed respect for the Belarusian authorities for the harsh sentence and speculated that the brutality of the crime was caused by the men’s nationality. Thus, the so-called Nazism in Ukraine and the Volyn tragedy were mentioned in the comments to the publication — we have already repeatedly written about these favorite topics of Russian propaganda in our stories Fake: Polish Classes with Ukrainian Kids Will Not Study the Volyn Tragedy — United24 and Fake: More Than 1,000 uses of Nazi Symbols by Ukrainian Forces Recorded in the Kursk Region — BBC.
However, the young men in the photo have nothing to do with Ukraine. They are brothers Ilya and Stanislav Kostev, natives of Mogilev region in Belarus. On the night of April 10, while intoxicated, they attacked their neighbor, teacher Natalya Kostrytsa, and stabbed her numerous times. To hide the traces of the crime, they also set the victim’s house on fire. The motive for the murder was probably a long personal conflict between Kostrytsa and the criminals’ older sister. In 2020, the brothers were sentenced to death for the shooting, which caused a public outcry. In particular, the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council expressed concern about the decision, and the European External Affairs Service called for the abolition of the death penalty (Ukraine also joined this resolution). In May 2021, the Kostevs were pardoned and their sentence was lessened to life imprisonment — this was the second such case in the history of Belarus.
Therefore, the information shared by pro-Russian sources does not correspond to reality. The murderers are not Ukrainians, and loud statements that Lukashenko «doesn’t care about the Council of Europe» are contradicted by the softening of the sentence, which the Belarusian government was forced to implement under the pressure of international human rights organizations.
