War crimes soldier asks widow for forgiveness

ARUSSIAN soldier facing the first war crimes trial since the start of the war in Ukraine has said he shot a civilian on orders from two officers and pleaded for his victim’s widow to forgive him.

Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin told the court yesterday that the officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his mobile phone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces.

The 21-year-old sergeant could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of shooting the Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in a village in the Sumy region of Ukraine on February 28, four days into the Russian invasion.

Looking subdued, Shishimarin said he at first disobeyed his immediate commanding officer’s order to shoot the unarmed civilian but had no other choice but to follow the order when it was repeated forcefully by another officer.

Shishimarin pleaded guilty to the charges during Wednesday’s hearing. Yesterday, he asked the victim’s widow, who also appeared at the trial, to forgive him for what he did.

“I realise that you can’t forgive me, but I’m pleading you for forgiveness,” Shishimarin said.

Kateryna Shelipova said her 62-year-old husband, Oleksandr Shelipov, went out to check what was going on when gunshots rang just outside their home. When the shooting ceased shortly afterwards, she walked out and found her husband shot dead just outside their home. “He was all to me. He was my defender,” she said.

Mrs Shelipova told the court Shishimarin deserves a life sentence for killing her husband, but added that she would not mind if he was exchanged as part of a possible prisoner swap with Russia for the Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal steel plant, in Mariupol.

The prosecutor asked for a life sentence for Shishimarin and the trial was adjourned until today.

Shishimarin, a captured member of a Russian tank unit, is being prosecuted under a section of the Ukrainian criminal code that addresses the laws and customs of war.

Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offences that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting. It was not clear how many of the suspects are in Ukrainian hands and how many would be tried in absentia.

As the inaugural war crimes case in Ukraine, Shishimarin’s prosecution is being watched closely. Investigators have been collecting evidence of possible war crimes to bring before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands.