The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Russian tank soldier is on trial in Kyiv
Ukrainian authorities opened the first war crimes trial of the conflict with the prosecution of a captured Russian soldier who is accused of killing a 62-yearold civilian.
Vadim Shyshimarin is facing life in prison if convicted of shooting the civilian in the head through a car window in the Sumy region on February 28.
The killing is one of thousands of potential war crimes being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutors.
Many of the alleged atrocities came to light last month after Moscow’s forces withdrew from around Kyiv, exposing mass graves and streets strewn with bodies.
During the 15-minute hearing, Shyshimarin said he understood his rights and declined the offer of a jury trial.
Shyshimarin, a member of a tank unit, admitted he shot the civilian in a video posted by the Security Service of Ukraine, saying he was ordered to do so.
The trial got under way as Russia’s campaign in the Donbas made faltering progress.
Ukrainian news reports said troops thwarted an attempt by Russian forces to cross the Siversky Donets River earlier this week, leaving dozens of tanks and other military vehicles damaged or abandoned.
The battle for Donbas has turned into a grinding, village-by-village fight with no major breakthroughs on either side.
The Ukrainian military chief for the Luhansk region said yesterday that Russian forces opened fire 31 times on residential areas the day before, destroying dozens of homes and a bridge.
In the south, Ukrainian officials claimed another success in the Black Sea, claiming they have taken out another Russian ship.
The Vsevolod Bobrov logistics ship was badly damaged but not thought to have sunk when it was hit while trying to deliver an anti-aircraft system to Snake Island, said Oleksiy
Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser.
In April, Ukraine sank the Moskva, a guided missile cruiser that was the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
In other developments, moves by Finland and Sweden to join Nato were thrown into doubt when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said his country is “not favourable” towards the idea, accusing Sweden and other Scandinavian countries of supporting Kurdish militants.
Mr Erdogan did not say he would block the two countries from joining Nato, but the military alliance makes its decisions by consensus, meaning each of its members has a veto over who can join.
An expansion of Nato would be a blow to Vladimir Putin, who undertook the war to thwart the alliance’s easterly advance.
The European Union announced plans to give Ukraine an additional 500m euros to buy heavy weapons.