Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced to life in prison by a Ukrainian court in Kyiv on Monday, May 23, 2022, for killing an unarmed civilian in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia's February 24 invasion.
Please click on the images for glimpses of Vadim Shishimarin's trial.
IMAGE: Vadim Shishimarin -- who shot Oleksandr Shelipov making a phone call because he felt the Ukrainian was giving the Russians's position away -- stands inside a cage in a Kyiv court.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: Shishimarin apologised to Kateryna Shelipov, the victim's widow who sat across him in court. 'I can't forgive him,' Kateryna said later.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: Ironically, Kateryna revealed that her husband Oleksandr Shelipov had worked for the KGB -- the Russian spy agency; it is now the FSB -- in the 1970s and served as Leonid Brezhnev's bodyguard when then then Soviet leader visited Ukraine.
Ukraine was then a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: Judge Serhiy Agafonov sentenced Shishimarin to life in prison, saying the Russian soldier had committed murder and violated the laws of war.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: On Monday, Kateryna confronted Shishimarin asking him, 'Tell me please, why did you come here? To protect us?'
'Protect us from whom? Did you protect me from my husband, whom you killed?'
Photograph: Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters
IMAGE: Shishimarin asked Kateryna for her forgiveness, but acknowledged, 'I understand you won't be able to forgive me.'
In this May 13, 2022 photograph, his handcuffs are removed before he is moved to the defendant's cage.
Photograph: Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters
IMAGE: Shishimarin watches the lawyers argue their case before Judge Agafonov, May 13, 2022.
His defence lawyer said he would appeal against th verdict.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: Russia has made no official comment on Shishimarin's trial. Ukraine reportedly has compiled a dossier of 11,000 war crimes committed by Russian soldiers.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: Shishimarin's trial begins the long, difficult and unlikely road for Ukraine to hope and bring Russian President Vladmir Putin before a war crimes trial.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
IMAGE: Ivan Maltysev, another 21-year-old Russian soldier on trial with Shishimarin, told the judge that a senior officer in the vehicle had ordered Shishimarin to shoot Shelipov.
Photograph: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff.com
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
