The low gaze, the dismayed expression, the usual gray and blue sweatshirt with which he appeared in several video interviews. Vadim Shishimarin21, is the first Russian soldier to be sentenced to life in prison for war crimes from a Kiev court. He pleaded guilty to killing a civilian in the village of Chupakhivka, Sumy oblast, during the retreat of Russian troops, on February 28, by shooting him. He added that he did not want to kill him, and while his lawyer, Viktor Ovsyannikov, called for acquittal, the judges ruled that, as guilty of a war crime, he deserves the harshest punishment available.
“Even though the defendant claimed he did not intend to kill, the court does not trust these claims and believes there was intent,” said Judge Serhiy Ahafonov. “Since the crime committed is against peace, security, humanity and the international legal order, the court does not see the possibility of imposing a shorter prison sentence“.
In an interview with the independent Russian news agency Meduzathe mother of ShishimarinLyubov, claimed that his son was a thoughtful and kind young man that he had joined the army partly because opportunities were lacking in their city (Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk region) and partly to help support the family after his stepfather was killed last year. Vadim, after graduation, he started working in a tire shop in Moscow. She has four younger brothers than him and a girlfriend
Shishimarin’s mother said her son called in late February to explain: “Mom, I won’t have a phone for a week, I have to give it up. If someone tells you I went to Ukraine, don’t believe them“. The next time she heard about him was when, in early March, she found out that he was a prisoner in Ukraine. She guarantees that her son would not be able to kill a man: “Maybe he was forced.”
Shishimarin shot Oleksandr Shelipov in the head, 62: claims he was carrying out the order of a fellow soldier. But he hit a civilian, violating the Geneva Conventions, and obeyed a soldier who was not Shishimarin’s commanding officer, whom he did not know. According to Judge Ahafonov, he “was not obliged to carry out that order.”
Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova’s office is investigating 12,909 alleged Russian war crimesand said 4,600 civilians, including 232 children, have been killed in Ukraine since Russia started the war on February 24.
Shishimarin’s attorney is ready to appeal. “My defendant’s actions were misjudged,” he said. The ruling did justice to Oleksandr Shelipov’s widow, Kateryna Shelipova. But it is unlikely to lead to an immediate change in the tactics of the Russian forces: Deliberately targeting civilians has become one of the hallmarks of this conflict.
It is possible that, once convicted, Shishmarin and others could be used as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.
– War in Ukraine
Source: Vanity Fair
