A Russian Soldier In Ukrainian Custody Will Be Tried For War Crimes

The identity of the war criminal, a 21 year old tank commander who was later captured by Ukrainian forces, confirms reports that many of the murders of civilians in Ukraine were impulse killings by bored, drunk or indifferently homicidal Russian soldiers who were teens and young adults. JL 

Maura Orru and Matthew Luxmoore report in the Wall Street Journal, image Rodrigo Abd, AP:

A Russian soldier in Ukrainian custody will be the first to stand trial on war-crimes charges after an investigation alleged he fatally shot at an unarmed 62-year-old man near his home in northeastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said her office filed an indictment on charges of violating the laws and customs of war against the 21-year-old tank-division commander, identified as Vadim Shishimarin. Mr. Shishimarin is accused of firing several shots from a Kalashnikov rifle at the head of a man, who died on the spot a few dozen meters from his home

A Russian soldier in Ukrainian custody will be the first to stand trial on war-crimes charges, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said Wednesday, after an investigation alleged he fatally shot at an unarmed 62-year-old man near his home in northeastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said her office filed an indictment on charges of violating the laws and customs of war against the 21-year-old tank-division commander, identified as Vadim Shishimarin. He could face life imprisonment.

Mr. Shishimarin is accused of firing several shots from a Kalashnikov rifle at the head of a man, who died on the spot a few dozen meters from his home in the town of Chupakhivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region in the early days of the war, Ms. Venediktova said.

Ukrainian investigators have raced to collect evidence of purported atrocities committed by Russian troops against civilians during the nearly 11-week war, and have said they would pursue war-crimes cases in domestic courts.Moscow has denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians. It made no comment on the charges announced Wednesday.

The prosecutor general didn’t say how Mr. Shishimarin was detained or provide details of the evidence against him.

Ms. Venediktova told The Wall Street Journal on May 6 that her office identified about 40 members of the Russian military whom prosecutors suspect of war crimes, about 17 of those from the region around Kyiv. A few of the soldiers are in custody in Ukraine, she said.

Ukrainian authorities filed criminal charges last month against 10 Russian soldiers accused of taking civilians hostage and mistreating them in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. That was the first such move by prosecutors investigating possible war crimes by Moscow’s forces. Ukraine plans to adjudicate those cases in its own courts before issuing international criminal-arrest warrants.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of war crimes after what Ukrainian officials have said was a Russian decision to target civilian populations as its military offensive encountered stiff Ukrainian resistance.

The U.S. government has also accused Russian forces in Ukraine of committing war crimes, an action that will formalize continuing investigations into alleged atrocities.

Wednesday’s developments occurred as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed a security deal with Sweden and Finland pledging to support their militaries should they come under attack. The pacts call for more intelligence sharing, joint military training and bolstering security. A statement from the prime minister made no mention of Russia. Finland and Sweden have said they are considering joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and will make a decision in the coming weeks, following Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, accused Russian troops in Ukraine of shipping grains and produce critical to the Ukrainian economy to Crimea, adding to their list of grievances against occupying forces, as local pro-Russian officials called for incorporation into Russia.

The military administration of the Zaporizhzhia region said that a column of Russian trucks loaded with Ukrainian grain left the occupied town of Enerhodar on Tuesday with a Russian military escort. It said they were bound for the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The administration also said that vegetables and sunflower seeds are being taken.

Ukraine and most of the international community regard Crimea as occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukraine provides about 10% of global wheat exports, 14% of corn exports, and roughly half of the world’s sunflower oil, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, the department has cut its outlook for the world’s wheat trade in the current season by more than 6 million tons, or 3%, as expectations for lower Russian and Ukrainian exports outpace anticipated increases elsewhere.

The Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t respond to requests to comment.

Authorities in the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, of strategic importance for its access to the Black Sea, plan to submit a request to Moscow to be formally accepted as part of Russia, a Kremlin-aligned official said Wednesday.

“There will be a request to introduce the Kherson region as a full-fledged entity of the Russian Federation” by year’s end, Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the military-civilian administration of the region, said during a news conference, in comments carried by Russian state news service TASS.

The development comes months after Moscow recognized the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk republics.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said residents of the Kherson region would have to decide their own fate.

“Such momentous decisions must carry an absolutely clear legal basis, a legal justification and be absolutely legitimate, as was the case with Crimea,” Mr. Peskov said.

In response, Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelensky adviser, said the only request pro-Russian officials in the Kherson region should be preparing was “for pardon after a court’s verdict.”

“The occupiers can ask to join even Mars or Jupiter. Ukraine’s army will free Kherson, no matter which word games the occupiers come up with,” he said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

Ukraine says it isn’t only vital produce that is being forcibly relocated to Russia, but also thousands of people living in the Russian-controlled breakaway states of eastern Ukraine and other locations occupied by Russian forces. The head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which Russia seeks full control over, has said that 30,000 people have been taken to Russia from Mariupol alone.

Russia denies forcing Ukrainians to leave their homes and said late Tuesday that 8,800 people were evacuated from Ukraine onto its territory in the past 24 hours, including more than 1,000 children. It said more than 1.2 million people have been evacuated to Russia since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

In other developments, the U.K.’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research said global economic output would be around $1.5 trillion lower at the end of 2022 than would have been the case had Russia not invaded Ukraine, a loss of about 1% of world gross domestic product.

In its first report on the global economic outlook since the start of the war, the institute said global activity would be diminished by higher energy and food prices as a result of the conflict, as well as by blows to household and business confidence.

The U.K.’s leading independent economic research body said it now expects the global economy to grow by 3.3% this year, having forecast a 4.2% expansion in January. For next year, it sees growth of 3.2%, down from 3.5% in January.

As Europe races to sever its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, the company that runs Ukraine’s pipeline network halted the flow of gas to Europe through a major entry point between the Luhansk region of Donbas and Russia on Wednesday. It blamed interference by Russian troops.

The border crossing accounts for a third of Russian gas exports through Ukraine to Europe and feeds 3% of the European Union’s overall gas consumption. For now, sufficient gas is flowing through Ukraine for companies in Europe to import the fuel they are on contract to buy from Russian state giant Gazprom PJSC, analysts said.

“Russia has always reliably fulfilled and intends to fulfill contractual obligations,” said Mr. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman. “We have already heard Gazprom’s statements that no notifications or explanations of force majeure have been given so far.”