Russian soldier in Ukrainian custody will stand trial for alleged war crime, Ukraine’s prosecutor general announces
The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it would try a 21-year-old Russian soldier who is in Ukrainian custody, the first Russian service member to stand trial in the country on a war crimes charge since the war began.
The prosecutor’s announcement accused Vadim Shishimarin of firing several shots with a Kalashnikov rifle that killed an unarmed 62-year-old resident by the side of the road in a village in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine on Feb. 28. It said investigators have collected “enough evidence of his involvement in violation of the laws and customs of war combined with premeditated murder."
“Shishimarin is actually physically in Ukraine,” Iryna Venediktova, the prosecutor general, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster. “We are starting a trial not in absentia, but rather directly with the person who killed a civilian, and this is a war crime.”
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