Russian soldier sentenced to life in prison for killing Ukrainian civilian

A court in Kiev has sentenced a Russian soldier to life imprisonment for killing an unarmed civilian in the first days of the invasion of Ukraine.

The decision marks the first sentence of a war crimes soldier since the beginning of the conflict in late February, Euronews writes.

Vadim Shishimari, a 21-year-old tank commander, was convicted of killing a 62-year-old in a village in the northeastern region of Sumy, on 28 February, four days after the war. He testified that he had shot the man out of the open car window at the order of two senior officers.

Shishimari also told the court that one of his superiors had insisted that Ukrainians be shot because he was talking on his mobile phone at the time and could have given them their location to Ukrainian forces.

During the trial, Shishimari asked the victim's dew to forgive him.

His appointed Ukrainian defence lawyer, Victor Ovsyanikov, had argued last Friday that the 21-year-old was unprepared for “violent military confrontation” and mass victims that Russian troops had encountered during the invasion.

“Let's try to put ourselves in the place of at least one of those people in that car, and generally,” said Ovsyankov. Did they understand that they had killed a person at the time, or they just shot a machine gun and went on?

Prosecutors said the direction to shoot had not come from the main commander of Sishimari and thus did not constitute orders.

The defence arguments are, as it were, important for the line of defence, but I believe that this in no way rejects the evidence we have offered,” said prosecutor Andriy Synyuk. “And I believe they do not deny the guilt of Sishimari himself in this criminal act”.

Ukraine's General Prosecutor, Iryna Venedicova, had earlier said her office was preparing war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for actions involving shelling civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and robbery. Investigators are also collecting evidence of possible war crimes to bring before the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.