Russia sentences Ukrainian war prisoner to 19 years in prison for allegedly killing civilian

Russian Rostov-on-Don military court  sentenced Ukrainian war prisoner Anton Cherednik to 19 years in a strict regime penal colony with the first three years in prison.

Being a marine during the full-scale war, Cherednik was taken prisoner in April 2022 during the battle for Mariupol, Ukrainian outlet Graty reported.

The soldier was accused of allegedly killing a civilian in the village of Myrnyi in the Donetsk region.

"On 27 March 2022, Cherednik stopped two civilians, fired shots from a machine gun, ordered them to lie down on the ground and demanded that one of the men say a word in Ukrainian, then because of the incorrect pronunciation, shot one of the detainees with a machine gun," Russian Investigative Committee claimed.

The Russian court charged Cherednik with the mistreatment of civilians, murder on the grounds of racial or national hatred, "violent seizure of power," and "undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities.

On 6 April 2023, Graty reported that Russia had begun hearing the case of 44-year-old marine Anton Cherednik.

This is the first trial of a Ukrainian serviceman in a Russian court. Previously, all such cases were heard in the courts of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic"

On 4 April 2022, Anton Cherednik was taken prisoner, and on the 8th he was sent to a pre-trial detention centre in occupied Donetsk.

The Russian side reported that several hundred soldiers of the 501st Battalion had been captured near Mariupol. Some of them tried to break out of the encirclement and were taken prisoner, while others managed to retreat to the Azovstal plant, where the Azov battalion and other defenders of the city were holding the line.