The Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) sentenced Vladislav Chernoknizhny, a marine of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), to 22 years in a high-security colony for shooting a civilian in Mariupol. This was announced on Tuesday, May 7, by the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.

«He was found guilty under paragraphs «g», «l» of Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation («Murder committed by an organized group motivated by political, ideological hatred»), part 1 of Article 356 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation («Ill—treatment of civilians in the occupied territory»),» the message says, published on the agency’s website.

It is clarified that a fighter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while at an observation position located next to the maternity hospital in Mariupol, found a civilian passing nearby. According to investigators, guided by the commander’s order, a 26-year-old sniper killed a citizen with aimed shots from a machine gun.

Earlier, on March 28, it was reported that a court in the DPR sentenced to life imprisonment a 28-year-old fighter of the Azov battalion (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) for the murder of five civilians in Mariupol.

In March 2022, he, along with other servicemen, shot a car with the inscription «Children» on Arkhip Kuinzhi Street in Mariupol on orders. As a result, the man, woman and child riding in the car died on the spot. In addition, in April of the same year, on the orders of the commander, he shot a car with two Mariupol residents on Primorsky Boulevard.