National Guard officer Artemiy Ryabchuk, who shot his colleagues at the Pivdenmash plant in Dnipro in January 2022, was sentenced to life in prison, the Prosecutor General's Office reports.
The court found him guilty of violating the statutory rules of relations, murder and attempted murder of two or more people, stealing weapons, desertion, as well as violating the statutory rules of guard service and illegal handling of weapons.
The National Guard officer was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Prosecutors proved in court that on 27 January 2022, the serviceman was included in the guard guarding the territory of the state enterprise Production Association Pivdennyi Makarov Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro.
At night, he stole a weapon from the armoury and opened fire. The shooting killed four of his colleagues and an employee of the plant. Five other National Guardsmen sustained injuries of varying severity.
After the shooting, the shooter fled from the place of service, taking his weapon with him.
He was soon detained by law enforcement officers.
In court, the convict pleaded guilty to the crime.
He was waiting for the court's verdict in custody.
As a reminder, 20-year-old National Guard officer Artemiy Ryabchuk shot a guard with an assault rifle on the night of 27 January 2022 and then fled with the weapon. The dead included four soldiers and a civilian woman. Five other people were seriously injured.The young man was detained near Pidhrodnye, near Dnipro, after he asked a passerby to call the police and report his whereabouts.
Subsequently, Artemiy Ryabchuk retracted all his testimony.
At that time, the investigation considered three versions of the tragedy: mental illness, actions on the instructions of the outside world to discredit law enforcement agencies, and the main version - the shooting because of non-statutory relations, i.e. dedovshchina (hazing). The departmental commission established the facts of non-statutory relations.