Life sentence for baby-faced war criminal... but will he be saved by prisoner swap?
A BABY-FACED Russian tank commander smirked yesterday as he left court to start his life sentence for murdering an innocent grandfather in Ukraine.
Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was photographed smiling as he was bundled into a waiting police van in Kyiv after receiving the most severe punishment possible.
But the dead-eyed killer knew two of his comrades have already been sent to Russia in a prisoner swap and he may well receive the same reprieve.
Shishimarin claimed his commanders ordered him to shoot Oleksandr Shelypov, 62, as they feared he was giving their position away as the pensioner was on a mobile phone.
He said he initially refused to kill Mr Shelypov – a former KGB bodyguard – before gunning him down in the northeastern town of Chupakhivka.
But Judge Serhii Ahafonov yesterday rejected his account, saying he acted ‘deliberately’ and willingly followed an ‘illegal order’ on February 28.
Incredibly it was Mrs Shelypov who who had previously suggested her husband’s killer could be swapped for a Ukrainian soldier.
She told the Daily Mail last night: ‘I can’t bring back my husband, but I can save another Ukrainian soldier’s life.’