Occupant sentenced to life for killing civilian in Kherson region

A court has handed down a life sentence to a Russian military officer for the murder of a civilian ship captain during the occupation of Kherson region.

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

According to the investigation, the Russian Armed Forces serviceman was found guilty of violating the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder. The verdict of the court of first instance was passed on March 12, 2026 - life imprisonment.

Prosecutors proved that on the evening of November 1, 2022, in the temporarily occupied Hola Prystan, a Russian military man opened aimed fire at a civilian vessel. The tugboat RBT-1 Ridsa was just docking after a voyage from Kherson, carrying passengers.

As a result of the shelling, the captain of the vessel received a fatal head wound and died on the spot. Other passengers were not injured.

After the crime, the occupiers tried to conceal the murder and spread fakes about the alleged shelling of the ship by the Ukrainian military.

The pre-trial investigation was carried out by Kherson police investigators, with operational support provided by SBU counterintelligence units and cyber police.

According to the representative of the Prosecutor's Office Oleksiy Butenko, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in Kherson region, 29 Russian servicemen and their accomplices have already been convicted of war crimes. The work to bring the perpetrators to justice continues, and no crime will go unpunished.

As Intent previously wrote, the terrorist country of Russia has turned Kherson into a city underground through daily attacks by Russian drones that deliberately target civilians. Despite the losses, fear and lack of resources, the citizens stay to prevent the enemy from taking over the city.

The UN Commission has already labeled the drone strikes on civilians in Kherson and 16 other settlements as war crimes and crimes against humanity. In total, nearly 150 civilians have been killed and hundreds injured as a result of these attacks.

The targets are public transportation stops, train stations, and streets. The drones do not just drop explosives - some of them carry out "kamikaze" missions, crashing into the victim. The official emphasized that what is happening every day is a targeted terror of the civilian population.

Before the full-scale war, Kherson was home to more than 500,000 people. Today, only about 150 thousand remain. But, as the head of the JFO noted, despite the shelling, there is still life in the city. And as long as there are people here, Kherson will stand.

A trailer for the documentaryKherson: Human Safari", a documentary about the Russian terror, was recently released. The 80-minute film was made by American filmmaker and journalist Zarina Zabriskie. It covers the period from the beginning of the invasion in 2022 to today's massive drone attacks.

Андрій Колісніченко