Jake Massey
A Russian soldier has been jailed for life at the first war crimes trial since the invasion of Ukraine.
Captured soldier Sgt Vadim Shishimarin was convicted of killing civilian Oleksandr Shelipov in the north-eastern village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
He admitted shooting the 62-year-old but said he had been acting on orders and asked for forgiveness from his victim's widow.
"I realise that you can't forgive me, but I'm pleading you for forgiveness," Shishimarin said.
Advert
The 21-year-old said he at first disobeyed his immediate commanding officer's order to shoot the unarmed civilian but had no other choice but to follow the order when it was repeated forcefully by another officer.
Kateryna Shelipova said her husband went outside to check what was going on when gunshots rang out just outside their home.
When the shooting ceased, she walked out and found her husband shot dead just outside their home.
"He was all to me. He was my defender," she said.
At one point in the trial, Shelipova confronted Shishimarin directly.
"Tell me please, why did you [Russians] come here? To protect us?" she asked, citing Russian President Vladimir Putin's justification for the invasion of Ukraine.
"Protect us from whom? Did you protect me from my husband, whom you killed?"
Shelipova told the court Shishimarin deserves a life sentence for killing her husband, but added that she would not mind if he was exchanged as part of a possible prisoner swap with Russia for the Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
Speaking to the BBC, she said: "I feel very sorry for him but for a crime like that - I can't forgive him."
Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has said her office is prosecuting 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting.
On the battlefield, town-by-town fighting continues as Russian troops try to expand the territory that Moscow-backed separatists have held since 2014 in the Donbas region in the east of Ukraine.
To bolster its defences, Ukraine's parliament voted yesterday (Sunday 22 May) to extend martial law and mobilise the armed forces for a third time, until 23 August.
Ukrainian officials have said little since the war began about the extent of their country's casualties, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a news conference yesterday that 50 to 100 Ukrainian fighters are being killed each day in the east.
If you would like to donate to the Red Cross Emergency Appeal, which will help provide food, medicines and basic medical supplies, shelter and water to those in Ukraine, click here for more information