Russian serviceman Erzhan Amandusov, who in November 2022 shot a tugboat in Hola Prystan, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
This is reported by the Center for Journalistic Investigations.
Recall, on the evening of November 1, 2022, a Russian serviceman shot at a civilian tugboat while it was mooring in Hola Prystan in the temporarily occupied territory of Kherson region. A 35-year-old captain of the tugboat was killed at the scene.
According to a Kherson resident who witnessed the incident, the Russian began shooting at the tugboat without warning, which had stopped for inspection at a Russian checkpoint, with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
“There were no fewer than ten shots, I heard the ringing of bullets against the hull of the boat. The tug began to be carried toward the other shore and I heard a splash, as if someone ‘ducked’ into the water. Then the shooter saw me and ordered me to lie on the ground, putting my hands behind my head. They searched me but found nothing. The shooter asked me what I was doing there. I explained that I wanted to find out the tugboat’s schedule and asked to be released unharmed. The serviceman threatened that I should not come here again and should not tell anyone anything, otherwise I would be shot,” the man told the court.
He remembered well the Russian serviceman who shot at the tugboat and detained him. According to him, he differed from the other Russians present by his Asian appearance — they all that evening had their faces uncovered.
As Ukrainian investigators later established, the Russian then fired at least 17 shots at the civilians who were on that tugboat. A 35-year-old captain of the tug RBT-1 “Rydsa” died at the scene.
On the morning of November 2, 2022, an unknown man called another Kherson woman. He said that the previous evening in Hola Prystan a Russian sniper had killed her brother when he was approaching the shore by tugboat.
“The unknown man said that he would cover all the costs of burying my brother. Later the body was delivered to the Kherson river port. My brother was buried on November 4. That same day I was given a medical certificate of his death. The same unknown man explained to me that my brother’s killer had been found and would certainly be punished. According to him, that serviceman had just returned from rotation and did not know that a civilian tugboat was passing there. That is why he opened fire on it,” the victim’s sister said in court.
The unknown man told her the name of the killer — Erzhan Amandusov.
Ukrainian investigators established that he is a native of Orenburg, a resident of the village of Brody in the Orenburg region of the Russian Federation. He served in the 33rd Motor Rifle Regiment of the 20th Motor Rifle Division of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The court qualified the actions of the accused Erzhan Amandusov as a war crime in the form of a deliberate attack on a civilian floating vessel, combined with the intentional murder of a civilian — under Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.