Ukraine begins first war crimes trial
Russian soldier accused of slaying civilian
Mukachevo, Ukraine — A court in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, began hearings Friday in the case against Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier to go on trial for alleged war crimes. He is accused of shooting a 62-year-old civilian in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy in late February.
Shishimarin, 21, a member of Russia’s 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya tank division, is in Ukrainian custody. He is charged with violating “the laws and customs of war combined with premeditated murder,” for which he could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty, Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said Wednesday in a statement on Facebook.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said Friday that the hearing in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district court was a “preparatory meeting.” Footage shared by Ukrainian media showed the handcuffed Russian soldier entering the courtroom wearing a blue and gray hoodie, his eyes downcast.
The proceedings lasted about 15 minutes, according to the Associated Press. Shishimarin was told his rights and declined a jury trial. The indictment in Shishimarin’s case will be read May 18.
Shishimarin is accused of killing an unarmed civilian who was pushing a bicycle on the side of a road in the village of Chupakhivka, firing several rounds from his Kalashnikov rifle on Feb. 28, Venediktova’s statement said. Venediktova said on Twitter on Friday that Shishimarin, along with four other soldiers, had been fleeing the fighting in the Sumy region in a stolen car.
The man was speaking on his phone, and “one of the soldiers ordered the sergeant to kill the civilian so that he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders,” the statement said. “The man died on the spot just a few dozen meters from his home.”
The statement did not shed light on how the Russian soldier ended up in Ukrainian custody. In a video posted to YouTube on March 19 that appears to show Shishimarin being interviewed by Ukrainian video blogger Volodymyr Zolkin, Shishimarin says he was captured in Ukraine when his column was surrounded as they tried to move their wounded back to Russia.
Shishimarin said in a video posted by the Ukrainian security service that he had been ordered to shoot the man in Sumy. Even if true, that does not absolve him of responsibility.
“The fact that he received what he knew to be an illegal order is not a legal defense under international law,” said Dermot Groome, a law professor at Penn State and former war crimes prosecutor who has been advising Venediktova’s office.
The fact that Shishimarin appears to be cooperating — and that he is young — could get him a lighter sentence, though, Groome said.
Shishimarin is being represented by Ukrainian court-appointed attorney Victor Ovsyanikov, who told the AP that the case against his client is strong but the court still has to decide what evidence to allow.
“For me it is just work,” Ovsyanikov told the New York Times. “It is very important to make sure my client’s human rights are protected, to show that we are a country different to the one he is from.”
With the eyes of the world on Ukraine, and top international law experts advising Ukrainian prosecutors, Ukraine is likely to play the trial and others that follow by the book, Robert Goldman, a war crimes and human rights expert at American University’s Washington College of Law, told The Post this week.
Prisoners of war have the right to a trial by an independent and impartial court. Ukraine is also party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides strong due-process guarantees, Goldman said.
Ukraine has moved ahead with war crimes investigations even as it remains unlikely that top Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, will ever stand trial. The U.S. State Department announced in March that U.S. intelligence agencies had seen concrete evidence of war crimes by Russian troops, and the Biden administration is supporting Ukraine’s efforts to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes.