A Ukrainian court is due to begin on Friday to hear the first war crimes case stemming from the February 24 invasion of Russia, indicting a Russian soldier captured for the murder of a 62-year-old civilian.
The case is of enormous symbolic importance for Ukraine. The Ukrainian government accuses Russia of atrocities and brutality against civilians during the invasion and says it has identified more than 10,000 possible war crimes.
Russia has denied targeting civilians or any involvement in war crimes and has accused Kiev of staging them to defame its forces.
The Kiev district court’s website identified the soldier on trial as Vadim Shishimarin and said he was accused of “violations of the laws and norms of war”.
The Ukrainian attorney general’s office said the defendant is 21 years old and was a member of the Kantemirovskaya tank division in the Moscow region. Shishimarin faces life in prison for the murder in the village of Chupakhivka, in northeast Ukraine, on February 28.
It is unclear whether he will appear in court or who will defend him.
In a statement, the attorney general’s office said the soldier stole a car from private property to escape with four other Russian servicemen after his group was targeted by Ukrainian forces.
The statement said Russian soldiers entered the village of Chupakhivka, where they saw an unarmed villager riding a bicycle and talking on the phone.
According to the prosecutor, the suspect was ordered to kill the civilian to prevent him from reporting the presence of the Russians and fired several shots through the open car window with a rifle.
The Security Service of Ukraine conducted the investigation into the case.
Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Thursday that there were many examples of possible war crimes since the Russian invasion and that 1,000 bodies had been recovered so far in the Kiev region.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on April 25 that it would join a joint team with Ukrainian, Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors investigating allegations of war crimes against Russian forces.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” to disarm the country and protect it from fascists, denying that its forces committed abuses.
Source: CNN Brasil
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