The Crimean garrison military court sentenced contractor Aleksey Usenko to ten years in a strict regime colony in the case of the murder of a National Guardsman during the war. Kommersant drew attention to the process.
The decision was made in December 2022, and in March 2023, the higher district court upheld it and published an impersonal ruling on the case.
Although the date of the murder is not given there, it probably took place during the first month of the invasion of Ukraine: on March 29, 2022, Usenko's appeal against the decision to arrest him was received by the district court.
According to the document, Usenko drank cognac with his colleagues in the evening and drove drunk «in a motorcade moving towards Ukraine to carry out a special military operation.»
The military recalled in court that the contract soldier that evening also smelled of fumes, and his gait was “unstable.”
Usenko with an AKS-74U assault rifle stopped a car with two National Guardsmen, considering her «suspicious». He demanded that the National Guardsmen go out onto the road and show their documents. He shot one of them in the stomach, and forced the second to lie down, stepped on his back and put a machine gun to his head, demanding to be silent.
The military, who were approached to the place, Usenko began to say that he «detained the saboteurs.» They took away his weapon. The wounded National Guardsman was taken to the hospital, and the convoy continued on its way 40 minutes later. “After 40-50 kilometers of the way” they were fired upon.
Usenko was initially accused of attempted murder (part 3 of article 30, part 1 of article 105 of the Criminal Code), but during the investigation the charge was tightened to the murder of the first national guard and threats second murder (Part 1 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code, Part 1 of Article 119 of the Criminal Code).