21-year-old Russian soldier sentenced to life in Ukraine's 1st war crimes trial
Kyiv, May 23: A Ukrainian court sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison Monday for killing a Ukrainian civilian, sealing the first guilty conviction for war crimes since Moscow's invasion three months ago.
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty to shooting a Ukrainian civilian in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region in the early days of the war.
He testified that he shot the man after being ordered to do so. He told the court that an officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces.
The sentencing came as the 3-month-old war helped push the number of people displaced worldwide to the highest level on record level, according to the United Nations, with more 100 million people driven from their homes across the globe.
Meanwhile,
Ukrainian
President
Volodymyr
Zelenskyy
addressed
the
World
Economic
Forum
as
it
opened
in
Davos,
Switzerland,
calling
for
"maximum"
sanctions
against
Russia.
He
said
by
video
that
sanctions
needed
to
go
further
to
stop
Russia's
aggression,
including
an
oil
embargo,
all
of
its
banks
blocked
and
cutting
off
trade
with
Russia
completely.
Zelenskyy says his country has slowed Russian advances and his people's courage has stirred unseen unity of the democratic world.
On
the
battlefield,
Russian
forces
have
stepped
up
shelling
in
Ukraine's
eastern
industrial
heartland
as
they
press
their
offensive
in
the
region
that
is
now
the
focus
of
fighting.
Grinding
battles
in
the
Donbas,
where
Ukrainian
and
Russian
forces
are
fighting
town
by
town,
have
forced
many
civilians
to
flee
their
homes.
In Tokyo on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida joined in condemning Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Earlier on his trip to Asia, Biden signed legislation granting Ukraine $40 billion more in U.S. support for its defense against the Russian attack.
Western support - both financial and military - has been key to Ukraine's defense, helping their outgunned and outnumbered forces to repel Russia's attempt to take the capital of Kyiv and fight them to a standstill in other places. In the face of those setbacks, Moscow has outlined more limited goals in Ukraine, with its sights now on trying to expand the territory that Russia-backed separatists have held since 2014.
Ukrainian forces dug in around Sievierodonetsk, the main city under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk province of the Donbas, as Russia intensified efforts to capture it. Gov. Serhiy Haidai accused the Russians of "simply intentionally trying to destroy the city ... engaging in a scorched-earth approach."
Haidai said Sunday that the Russians had occupied several towns and cities in Luhansk after indiscriminate, 24-hour shelling and concentrating forces and weaponry there, bringing in troops from Kharkiv to the northwest, Mariupol to the south, and from inside Russia. But the Ukrainian military said that Russian forces were unsuccessful in their attack on Oleksandrivka, a village outside of Sievierodonetsk.
Ukraine's parliament voted Sunday to extend martial law and mobilize its armed forces for a third time, until Aug. 23. Ukrainian officials have said little since the war began about the extent of their country's casualties, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that 50 to 100 Ukrainian fighters were being killed, apparently each day, in the east.
While the east is now the focus of flighting, the conflict is not confined there. Powerful explosions were heard early Monday in Korosten, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Kyiv, the town's deputy mayor said. It was the third straight day of apparent attacks in the Zhytomyr District, Ukrainian news agencies reported.