Life sentence for killing an infant over crying: Supreme Court upholds verdict

The Supreme Court on October 7, 2026 dismissed the appeals filed by the 32-year-old convict and his lawyer. The appellate court’s ruling—life imprisonment for the murder of his cohabiting partner’s six-month-old son—was upheld. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced the final decision in the case yesterday.

The murder took place on September 7, 2019, in a village in Kirovohrad Oblast. According to the criminal case records, the man was at home and intoxicated. The boy’s crying irritated him. He grabbed the baby by the face and forcefully struck his head against a wall twice. The child died from his injuries.

A forensic medical examination determined that the cause of death was a severe traumatic brain injury. The boy had skull fractures, hemorrhages, and brain damage.

During the trial, the accused denied involvement in the murder. However, prosecutors presented evidence that formed the basis for his conviction.

Before the case reached the Supreme Court, it went through the following stages:

• In November 2025, the trial court sentenced the man to 15 years in prison. The prosecution appealed, arguing that the sentence was not severe enough.
• On April 15, 2026, the appellate court granted the prosecutors’ appeal and replaced the fixed-term sentence with life imprisonment.

The man’s actions were classified as the intentional murder of a minor under paragraph 2 of part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

We previously reported:

• Child rapist: man in Poltava’s 15-year sentence replaced with life imprisonment
• She drank energy drinks and killed her own child: prosecutors charge young mother with a crime
• In Zakarpattia, man beat his 10-year-old stepdaughter to death: court sentences him to life in prison
• Woman in Mykolaiv kills her newborn son and throws his body into a garbage bin