War crimes trial first for conflict
Minister admits no end to battles in sight
Journalists packed a small courtroom in Kyiv for the trial of a captured Russian soldier accused of killing a Ukrainian civilian in the early days of the war — the first of dozens of war crimes cases that Ukraine’s top prosecutor said her office is pursuing.
As the trial of 21-year-old Russian Sgt Vadim Shyshimarin got under way in the capital, Russian forces suffered heavy losses in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a pontoon bridge they were using to try to cross a river in the east, Ukrainian and British officials said.
Ukraine’s airborne command released photos and video of what it said was a damaged Russian pontoon bridge over the Siversky Donets River in Bilohorivka and at least 73 destroyed or damaged Russian military vehicles nearby.
Britain’s Defence Ministry said Russia lost “significant armoured manoeuvre elements” of at least one battalion tactical group in the attack.
A Russian battalion tactical group consists of about 1000 troops.
“Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky manoeuvre and speaks to the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine,” the ministry said.
With Russia’s offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, seeming to turn increasingly into a grinding war of attrition and Ukraine pleading for more arms to fend off the betterequipped Russians, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief announced plans to give Kyiv an additional €500 million ($833m) to buy heavy weapons.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed the heavy weapons making their way to the front lines but admitted there was no quick end to the war in sight.
“We are entering a new, long-term phase of the war,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
“Extremely difficult weeks await us. How many there will be? No one can say for sure.”
The battle for the Donbas has turned into a village-by-village, backand-forth slog with no major breakthroughs on either side and little ground gained.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday said no one can predict how long the war will last but that his country’s forces have been making progress, including retaking six Ukrainian towns or villages in the past day.
In the first war crimes case brought to trial, Shyshimarin could get life in prison if convicted of shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in a village in the northeastern Sumy region on February 28, four days into the invasion.
The defendant, sat in a small glass cage during the proceedings, which lasted about 15 minutes and will resume on Wednesday.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said she was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offences including bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting.