In sentenced to life imprisonment Russian soldierVadim Sisimarin, who pleaded guilty to the murder of an unarmed 62-year-old citizen in the first trial for war crimes.
The 21-year-old Russian tank commander he confessed his guilt in a Kiev district court, that he shot at an unarmed man on February 28, just four days after the start of the Russian invasion.
Ukrainian prosecutors have stated that The soldier was among four other Russian soldiers who shot and stole a privately owned car. to escape after their army had become the target of Ukrainian forces.
When they arrived in Chupakhivka, 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 the alarm that they were in the village.
He then killed the civilian, a few meters away from his house, after him shot several times in the head from the open car window.
“I was ordered to shoot. I shot one. He fell. And we continued “, he claimed.
THE soldier’s defense lawyernamed Viktor Ovsiannikov, told the court that his client had initially refused to shoot, but he was instructed twice and so he fired for fear of his own safety.
He said: “He was sitting in 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 senior leadership of the other country that I think is guilty of unleashing this war».
The Russian soldier was prosecuted under the Ukrainian Penal Code concerning the laws and customs of war.
The trial comes after Ukraine accuses Russia of atrocities against civilians during the invasion, adding that he has located more than 10,000 possible war crimes. Russia has denied, however, that its troops were targeting civilians.
Moscow has also accused Kyiv of organizing the atrocities in an attempt to tarnish its strength.
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