Russian soldier gets life for Ukraine war crimes
A 21-year-old Russian soldier was found guilty of war crimes for killing an unarmed civilian and handed a life sentence by a Ukrainian court on Monday, in the first verdict of its kind since the invasion began three months ago.
The ruling came as President Volodymyr Zelensky warned elites gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos that slow-walking military aid to Ukraine was costing thousands of lives, as he called for more weapons and even tougher sanctions against Moscow.
And as ferocious battles raged in eastern Ukraine, where Russia pummelling cities and towns in a bid to expand its hold on the Donbass region, a Russian diplomat in Geneva quit his post in protest over the war telling colleagues: "Never have I been so ashamed of my country."
In a Kyiv courtroom, Russian servicemen Vadim Shishimarin looked on from a glass defence box as was sentenced in a trial that followed around the world.
The sergeant from Siberia had admitted to killing a 62-year-old civilian, Oleksandr Shelipov as he was riding his bike in the village of Chupakhivka in northeast Ukraine.
Shishimarin apologised and asked Shelipov's widow for forgiveness, adding: "I was nervous about what was going on. I didn't want to kill."
But prosecutors stated he shot between three and four bullets with the intention of killing the civilian, and Judge Sergiy Agafonov sentenced him to life.
