Supreme Court upholds life imprisonment for conscript from Odesa region

The Supreme Court of Ukraine upheld the verdict of the Krasnohvardiyskyi District Court of Dnipro, which sentenced Artem Ryabchuk, a serviceman from Odesa region, to life imprisonment for shooting at the Southern Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro in January 2022.

This was reported by the press service of the Special Prosecutor's Office of the Eastern Region.

The court also upheld the ruling of the Dnipro Court of Appeal, which did not overturn the decision of the court of first instance.

In April 2024, the Krasnohvardiysky District Court of Dnipro sentenced Artem Ryabchuk, a soldier from Odesa Oblast, to life imprisonment.

At the trial, the man fully admitted his guilt, repented and apologized to the families of the victims. It was established that during his military service, the convict had conflicts with other servicemen. Several times he witnessed quarrels, which he reported to his superiors.

Because of this, other soldiers developed a negative attitude towards him. After another verbal argument on the night of January 27, 2022, he was in the weapons storage room, took an assault rifle and ammunition and began shooting people.

After the massacre, the accused seized the assault rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition and tried to escape. A few hours later, he was detained in the town of Pidhorodne, Dnipro district.

He was found guilty of:

• violation of the statutory rules of relations between servicemen in the absence of a relationship of subordination, committed against several persons, with the use of weapons, which caused grave consequences
• premeditated murder;
• completed attempted premeditated murder of two or more persons in connection with the performance of their official duty, as well as with the aim of concealing another crime or facilitating its commission;
• theft by a serviceman of weapons, ammunition, or other military property committed in a special period, except for martial law;
• desertion;
• violation of the statutory rules of guard service, which caused grave consequences, to prevent which this guard was appointed, committed in conditions of a special period, except for martial law;
• illegal handling of weapons, i.e. carrying and storing firearms and ammunition without a legal permit.

The case was sent to court in October 2022. On January 30, 2022, the Kirovskyi District Court of Dnipro upheld the prosecutor's request and imposed a pre-trial restraint of detention without bail on a National Guard serviceman suspected of killing five people and injuring five others.

Кирило Бойко