Ukraine jails Russian soldier for ten years for firing tank at flats

Ukraine jails Russian soldier for ten years for firing his tank at a block of flats two days into invasion in latest war crimes conviction

• Mikhail Kulikov fired at a residential building in Chernihiv on February 26 
• He claimed he was only following orders but a court has found him guilty
• Russia claims it has not been targeting civilians or non-military targets 

A Russian soldier has been sentenced to 10 years in jail after he was found guilty of firing a tank at a multi-storey apartment building in the first days of the Ukraine war.

Mikhail Kulikov blitzed the residential block in Chernihiv on February 26 and he was captured days later.

A court in the city has now found him guilty of violating the laws and customs of war, interior ministry official Anton Herashchenko said.

Mikhail Kulikov has been sentenced to 10 years in jail after he was found guilty of firing a tank at a multi-storey apartment building

The Russian blitzed the residential block in Chernihiv on February 26 and he was captured days later. Pictured: a burning building in Chernihiv – it is not the same building targeted by Kulikov

Kulikov pleaded guilty to some charges and sought a more lenient punishment because he said he had been following orders, the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office said.

The residential block that was hit in the city of Chernihiv was not a military target or being used for military purposes, it said.

Russia denies its forces deliberately target civilians in what it calls a special military operation.

Ukraine is investigating almost 26,000 suspected war crimes that were committed during the war and has charged 135 people, its chief war crimes prosecutor told Reuters last week.

Of those charged, around 15 are in Ukrainian custody and the remaining 120 remain at large, the prosecutor said

Ten days ago, a Russian tank commander who became the first of Putin’s soldiers to be jailed for war crimes saw his life sentence reduced to 15 years on appeal. 

Vadim Shishimarin, 21, shot dead 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in cold blood in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region in the opening days of the war

He was later captured and brought to Kyiv for trial, where he pleaded guilty to war crimes charges back in May

Vadim Shishimarin, 21, shot dead 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in cold blood in the northern Sumy region.

He was later captured and brought to Kyiv for trial, where he pleaded guilty to war crimes charges back in May.

But the baby-faced killer’s lawyers appealed, saying the sentence was unduly harsh given he had admitted wrongdoing and was acting on the orders of a superior.

Oleksandr Shelipov, 62, was pushing his bike along the street when Shishimarin shot him several times in the head 

An appeals court in the Ukrainian capital agreed and cut the penalty to 15 years. Viktor Ovsyannikov, Shishimarin’s lawyer, had been asking for 10 years.

Ovsyannikov said it is highly likely that Shishimarin will at some point be traded back to Russia in a prisoner swap. 

Mr Shelipov had been pushing his bike along a road in the Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka when he encountered Shishimarin and men from his unit, who were riding in a stolen civilian car.

Fearing that Mr Shelipov – a veteran of the Soviet military – was going to report their location to Ukrainian forces, Shishimarin’s superiors ordered him to kill the man.

He fired several shots at Mr Shelipov’s head from an automatic rifle, killing him. 

During the trial, Shishimarin told the court that he shot Oleksandr as he and several other Russian soldiers were retreating and trying to rejoin their units in Russia.

The soldiers found a civilian car, a Volkswagen, which they hijacked. ‘We wanted to get to where our army was and go back to Russia,’ Shishimarin said.

‘On our way as we were driving, we saw a man. He was talking on the phone. He said he would give us up.’

Shishimarin said another Russian soldier in the car, who he said was not his commander and who he called an ‘unknown’ soldier, ‘told me to shoot.’

During the trial, Shishimarin told the court that he shot Oleksandr as he and several other Russian soldiers were retreating and trying to rejoin their units in Russia

Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin looks down during his appeal hearing at a court in Kyiv

‘He started to say in a forceful tone that I should shoot,’ he told the court.

‘He said that I make up a danger if I don’t. I shot him at short range. It killed him.’

Oleksandr’s wife Kateryna Shelypova had confronted Shishimarin in the Kyiv court and asked him what he felt when he killed her husband.

‘Tell me what did you feel when you killed my husband? Do you repent of this crime,’ Kateryna asked the former soldier as he stood in the dock, looking straight ahead.

‘I admit my guilt. I understand you can’t forgive me. I ask forgiveness,’ he said.

Kateryna added: ‘Tell me please, why did you come here? To protect us? From whom? From my husband who you killed?’ 

Kateryna told the court that her husband was a tractor driver who was not carrying a weapon and was dressed in civilian clothes, according to quotes from Ukrainian journalist Daria Sipigina.

Kateryna said she was in her garden when she heard shots being fired, and ran out calling for her husband before seeing Shishimarin with a Kalashnikov.

He drove away with the rest of his squad, leaving her to discover her husband’s dead body lying on the side of the road.

‘The loss of my husband is everything for me. He was my protector,’ she said.

The baby-faced Russian tank commander smirked in the dock on Thursday as it emerged he could be sent home in a prisoner swap. 

Russian army Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, 21, is seen behind a glass during a court hearing in Kyiv

Shishimarin hung his head and begged for ‘forgiveness’ when he was cross-examined by Kateryna.

But the dead-eyed killer grinned after prosecutors revealed that two of his comrades – who had been due to give evidence against him – had been sent back to Russia in a prisoner swap.

News of a possible deal with Moscow emerged when Mr Shelypov’s widow Kateryna told judges she would approve of swapping Shishimarin for Ukrainians captured in the Azovstal factory in Mariupol.

But Russia has not confirmed that a swap will take place, amid suggestions that Putin may put the Ukrainians on trial.

Speaking before the trial, Kateryna revealed Oleksandr had once worked for the KGB and even guarded Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev when he visited Crimea.

She said he was proud to serve the Russian elite, but that she is now unable to forgive the Russian army for what it has done to her country.

Vadim Shishimarin, 21, has had his life sentence for war crimes in Ukraine reduced to 15 years after his lawyers appealed the ‘harsh’ sentence

Asked what she feels about Shishimarin, she told told ITV last week: ‘What can I say? Him being a child, he is young I feel sorry for him.’

Shishimarin admitted to killing Oleksandr with a Kalashnikov rifle as he fled with four other soldiers in a stolen car in a village in the Sumy region on February 28, just days after Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine on February 24.

The man was pushing a bicycle by the side of the road when he was shot in the head and ‘died on the spot a few dozen metres from his home’, the Ukrainian prosecutor general said during the opening phase of the trial last week.

Prosecutors said Shishimarin was ordered by a superior ‘to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders.’

Iryna Venediktova, the prosecutor general, said: ‘Shishimarin is actually physically in Ukraine. We are starting a trial not in absentia but rather directly with the person who killed a civilian, and this is a war crime.’

The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, posted a short video on May 4 of Shishimarin speaking in front of camera and briefly describing how he shot the man. 

The SBU described the video as ‘one of the first confessions of the enemy invaders.’

‘I was ordered to shoot,’ said Shyshimarin, wearing a blue and grey hooded sweatshirt. ‘I shot one (round) at him. He falls. And we kept on going.’

Ukrainian video blogger Volodymyr Zolkin also appeared to interview Shishimarin in a YouTube video posted on March 19.

In the clip, he said his unit was told they would be taking part in military exercises in southwestern Russia 200 miles from Ukraine in January.

He was later captured when his column was surrounded while they tried to return wounded soldiers to Russia. The footage then shows Shishimarin calling his father, saying: ‘They treat us well here.’

The father then tells Zolkin: ‘He is just a soldier. I don’t think he knew where he was going. You say he invaded, and we are told that they were defending the country. He didn’t know. He was told to. You hear one thing and we another.’ 

The clip ends with Shishimarin urging fellow Russians to not join the war effort and to protest instead.

Kyiv has repeatedly accused Russian troops of committing atrocities since the invasion began on February 24. Russian shelling has targeted schools and hospitals, with thousands of civilians killed in the brutal campaign.

There are also allegations of mass rape, torture and execution being carried out by Putin’s forces while the occupied Ukrainian towns in the Kyiv region.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova’s office has said it is looking into more than 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects, including Russian soldiers and government officials.

Many of the alleged atrocities came to light last month after Moscow’s forces ended their bid to capture Kyiv and withdrew from around the capital, exposing mass graves and streets and yards strewn with bodies in towns such as Bucha.

Volodymyr Yavorskyy, coordinator at the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv, one of Ukraine’s largest human rights groups, said activists will monitor the Russian soldier’s trial to ensure that his legal rights are protected. It can be difficult, he said, to maintain the neutrality of court proceedings during wartime.

The observance of the trial’s rules and norms ‘will determine how similar cases will be handled in the future,’ Yavorskyy said.

Vadim Karasev, an independent Kyiv-based political analyst, said it’s important for Ukrainian authorities ‘to demonstrate that the war crimes will be solved and those responsible will be brought to justice in line with international standards.’

The town of Bucha in the outskirts of Kyiv revealed a scene of horrors after it was recaptured by Ukraine, with mutilated civilian corpses lining the streets. 

Venediktova’s office has said it has received reports of more than 10,000 alleged war crimes, with 622 suspects identified.

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