MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/. A court in the Donetsk People's Republic has sentenced a Ukrainian military serviceman to life imprisonment for killing 14 civilians in Mariupol, Russia’s Investigative Committee has told TASS.

"The evidence collected by Russia’s Investigative Committee was recognized by the Supreme Court of the DPR as sufficient for sentencing Valentin Vasilenko, an operator of an anti-tank missile system of the 501st Separate Marine Battalion (military unit A1965) of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade. He was found guilty of cruel treatment of civilians, use of prohibited means and methods in an armed conflict, murder of two or more persons, including a minor, committed by a group of persons, on the grounds of political and ideological hatred and enmity," the news release reads.

The court sentenced Vasilenko to life imprisonment in a maximum-security penal colony.

The investigation and the court found that on March 4, 2022, servicemen of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, including Vasilenko, were sent to a combat position on a bridge in Mariupol. The command gave an order to forcibly retain the Kiev regime-controlled territory of the city by guarding combat positions in their area of responsibility and to use weapons if necessary. Guided by this order, on March 21, 2022, Vasilenko and other Ukrainian servicemen fired multiple shots with Kalashnikov rifles at six men, killing them, and on March 23 they opened fire on a civilian vehicle, killing six men, one woman and a young child.