A Russian soldier pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing a Ukrainian civilian in the opening stages of Moscow's invasion during the first war-crimes trial held since the war began.<\/p>\n
The hearing in a packed Kyiv courtroom is the first in a series of proceedings being brought by Ukraine against Russian servicemen who have been accused of carrying out atrocities by Kyiv and its Western allies.<\/p>\n
They are also a public test of Ukraine's judicial system at a time when international institutions are simultaneously investigating abuses allegedly committed by Russian forces.<\/p>\n
Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin is accused of killing a 62-year-old man in northeast Ukraine on February 28, just four days into the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old from the Siberian region of Irkutsk in eastern Russia has been charged with war crimes and premeditated murder faces a possible life sentence.<\/p>\n
Asked in court if he was guilty of killing the elderly civilian, the sergeant responded \"yes\".<\/p>\n
The Kremlin said earlier Wednesday that it had \"no information about the case\".<\/p>\n
Moscow's \"ability to provide assistance due to the lack of our diplomatic mission there is also very limited,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.<\/p>\n
Wearing a blue and grey hoodie, the youthful-looking soldier with a shaved head looked towards the ground as a prosecutor read out charges against him in Ukrainian.<\/p>\n
Viktor Ovsyannikov, the soldier's lawyer, said he would build his case after hearing \"testimonies of witnesses\" and described the trial as without precedent.<\/p>\n
\"In Ukraine, this is the first criminal case of this type. Judges have never before announced these kinds of verdicts,\" he said following the hearing.<\/p>\n
\"If we're talking about murder, then in our legislation there are several articles that punish this kind of action.\"<\/p>\n
- 'Sending a clear signal -<\/p>\n
He added that he had not liaised with anyone in Russia on the case, with the exception of Shishimarin's mother.<\/p>\n
\"No Russian officials have consulted with me. I have provided her with all the necessary explanations,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian authorities had earlier said the Russian soldier was cooperating with investigators.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Andriy Sinyuk told reporters that two witnesses -- including one of the Russian soldiers who was with Shishimarin at the time of the incident -- will be brought to testify in court.<\/p>\n
The soldier's weapon will also be examined as part of the probe, he said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Shishimarin was commanding a unit in a tank division when his convoy came under attack.<\/p>\n
He and four other soldiers stole a car, and as they travelled near the village of Chupakhivka in the Sumy region, they encountered a 62-year-old man on a bicycle.<\/p>\n
\"One of the soldiers ordered the accused to kill the civilian so that he would not denounce them,\" the prosecutor's office said.<\/p>\n
Shishimarin then fired a Kalashnikov assault rifle from the window of the vehicle and \"the man died instantly, a few dozen metres from his home\", they added in a statement.<\/p>\n
Ukraine authorities announced the soldier's arrest earlier in May alongside a video in which Shishimarin said he was fighting to \"support his mother financially\".<\/p>\n
Ukraine's chief prosecutor Iryna Venediktova on Twitter said there were \"over 11,000 ongoing cases of war crimes and already 40 suspects\".<\/p>\n
\"By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Oleksandr Pavlichenko, the head of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group for Human Rights, said that in the Shishimarin case \"the motivation is not only legal, but political as well.\"<\/p>\n
What is at stake, he said, is whether Ukraine \"will have a real judicial process or just a play for the public\".<\/p>\n
The trial is due to continue on Thursday, when two more Russian servicemen are expected in a central Ukraine court for firing rockets at civilian infrastructure in the northeastern Kharkiv region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Russian soldier pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing a Ukrainian civilian in the opening stages of Moscow's invasion during the first war-crimes trial held since the war began. The hearing in a packed Kyiv courtroom is the first in a series of proceedings being brought by Ukraine against Russian servicemen who have been accused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,1],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-92388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed","category-non-classifiee"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n