Russian pleads guilty to war crimes

A 21-year-old Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded Ukraine pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing an unarmed civilian.

Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin could get life in prison for allegedly shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in the northeastern Sumy region on Feb. 28, four days into the invasion.

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

“The … accused Shishimarin fully admitted the guilt of the crime in accordance with all circumstances established during the pre-trial investigation and announced by the prosecution during the trial today,” prosecutor Yaroslav Uschapivskyi said. “(Shishimarin) was instructed (to shoot a civilian) by a person who wasn’t his direct commander or a person whose instructions he was obliged to follow,” Uschapivskyi added. “So it’s not correct to say that there was some sort of order.”

Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offences that included killing civilians, rape and looting.

Investigators have been collecting evidence to bring to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Victor Ovsyanikov, Shishimarin’s attorney, said that despite the guilty plea he believed the soldier’s actions were “wrongly qualified.”