On trial for the death of a soldier under his command, Senior Lieutenant Oleg Leontyev asked a court on Friday to tailor his sentence so that he is able to continue his military service with Russian troops now in Syria. His final plea to the judge included an unsubtle wink at Moscow’s unofficial armed intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Explaining his wish to fight in Syria, Leontyev said, “I’ve already participated in one of these operations, but the only thing is that it was on the territory of a neighboring country where we were absent, as it were.”

During exercises on February 6, 2018, Leontyev allegedly ordered a Russian conscript named Igor Gorbunov to outmaneuver a tank, resulting in the soldier’s death. Prosecutors say Gorbunov didn’t yet have sufficient training to carry out Leontyev’s order. The soldier’s family believes that his fellow soldiers killed him and staged his death at the training exercise.

Officials in Moscow have repeatedly denied the Russian military’s involvement in eastern Ukraine, despite persuasive evidence to the contrary. The Kremlin has long insisted that any Russians fighting in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled areas are there only as private citizens.