Russian sentenced to life in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial
A captured Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a civilian was sentenced by a Ukrainian court Monday to life in prison — the maximum — amid signs the Kremlin may, in turn, put on trial some of the fighters who surrendered at Mariupol’s steelworks.
Meanwhile, in a rare public expression of opposition to the war from the ranks of the Russian elite, a veteran Kremlin diplomat resigned and sent a scathing letter to foreign colleagues in which he said of the invasion, “Never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24.”
Also, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “maximum” sanctions against Russia in a video address to world leaders and executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
And on the battlefield, heavy fighting raged in the Donbas in the east, where Moscow’s forces have stepped up their bombardment. Cities not under Russian control were constantly shelled, and one Ukrainian official said Russian forces targeted civilians trying to flee.
In the first of what could be a multitude of war crimes trials held by Ukraine, Russian Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced for the killing of a 62-year-old man who was shot in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region in the opening days of the war.
Shishimarin, a member of a tank unit, had claimed he was following orders, and he apologized to the man’s widow in court.
His Ukraine-appointed defense attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, argued his client had been unprepared for the “violent military confrontation” and mass casualties that Russian troops encountered when they invaded. He said he would appeal.
Ukrainian civil liberties advocate Volodymyr Yavorskyy said it was “an extremely harsh sentence for one murder during the war.” But Aarif Abraham, a British-based human rights lawyer, said the trial was conducted “with what appears to be full and fair due process,” including access to an attorney.
Before Shishimarin’s sentencing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was unable to defend the soldier but will consider trying to do so “through other channels.”
Mary Ellen O'Connell, an expert on international law at the University of Notre Dame, said that putting Shishimarin on trial could prove “extremely detrimental to Ukrainian soldiers in the hands of Russia.” She said Russia may decide to hold “show trials” of Ukrainians to boost the morale of its own soldiers and spread disinformation.
Family members of the fighters taken prisoner after the siege at the steel plant in Mariupol have pleaded for their eventual return to Ukraine as part of a prisoner swap.
DIPLOMAT RIPS PUTIN
Boris Bondarev, a veteran Russian diplomat at the U.N. office at Geneva, quit and sent a letter denouncing the “aggressive war unleashed” by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bondarev told The Associated Press: “It is intolerable what my government is doing now.”
In his letter, Bondarev said those who conceived the war “want only one thing — to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity.”
At the Davos forum, Zelenskyy said sanctions against the Kremlin must go further. He urged an embargo on Russian oil, a complete cutoff of trade and a withdrawal of foreign companies from the country.
“This is what sanctions should be: They should be maximum, so that Russia and every other potential aggressor that wants to wage a brutal war against its neighbor would clearly know the immediate consequences of their actions,” Zelenskyy said.