Filenews 23 May 2022
The Russian soldier, Vadim Sisimarin, who pleaded guilty to the murder of an unarmed 62-year-old citizen in the first war crimes trial, was sentenced to life in prison.
The 21-year-old Russian tank commander pleaded guilty to shooting at a Kiev district court of shooting at an unarmed man on February 28, just four days after the Russian invasion began.
Ukrainian prosecutors said the soldier was among four other Russian soldiers who shot and stole a privately owned car to escape after their army had been targeted by Ukrainian forces.
When they arrived in Chupakhivka, which is located about 200 miles east of Kiev, they saw a man riding a bicycle and talking on his phone.
As they said, Sisimarin received an order from another soldier to kill the civilian to prevent him from sounding an alarm that was in the village.
He then killed the civilian, a few meters away from his home, after shooting him several times in the head from the open window of the car.
"They ordered me to shoot. I shot one. He fell. And we continued," he claimed.
The soldier's defence lawyer, named Viktor Ovsiannikov, told the court that his client had initially refused to shoot, but was given the order twice and so carried out the shooting out of fear of his own safety.
He said: "He was sitting at the window of a car... the car was moving at high speed with a punctured tire."
"I personally believe that it should not be this young man in the dock, but the superior leadership of the other country who I think is guilty of unleashing this war."
The Russian soldier was persecuted according to the Ukrainian penal code concerning the laws and customs of war.
The trial comes after Ukraine accused Russia of atrocities and brutality against civilians during the invasion, adding that it has identified more than 10,000 possible war crimes. However, Russia denied that its troops were targeting civilians.
Moscow also accused Kiev of organizing the atrocities in an attempt to smear its forces.
Source: skai.gr
