A 21-year-old Russian soldier charged with shooting a civilian on a bicycle and leaving him dead by the side of the road will become the first Russian soldier to face war crimes in Ukraine since the invasion, Ukraine’s prosecutor said General. Wednesday.
The soldier is in Ukrainian custody and was identified by the Attorney General, Iryna Venediktova, as Sgt. Vadim Shysimarin. According to Ms. Venediktova, this is what the Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, found in its investigation:
On February 28, four days after the Russian invasion, Sergeant Shysimarin and four other servicemen stole a car at gunpoint while fleeing Ukrainian troops and entered the village of Chupakhivka in the Sumy region, about 200 miles east of Kiev. . There they saw an unarmed 62-year-old resident cycling along the road and making a phone call.
Sergeant Shysimarin was ordered to kill the man so he wouldn’t report them. He fired a Kalashnikov rifle from the car window at the man’s head and killed him on the spot, just a few dozen yards from his home.
Sergeant Shysimarin faces 10 to 15 years in prison. It was not immediately clear how he got into custody or when the historic trial could begin.
Both Ukrainian and international investigators have made huge efforts to document evidence of possible war crimes in areas where Russian troops have retreated. Hundreds of bodies have been recovered for forensics and UN officials are rushing with increased resources to the Ukrainian authorities to help prosecute growing reports of rape by Russian soldiers†
