Questions around the first Russian convict in Ukraine
Russian sergeant Vadim Chichimarine is sentenced to life for having shot a defenseless civilian. A trial that has test value for the Ukrainian authorities.
Russian Sergeant Vadim Chichimarine listens to his translator during his trial in kyiv, May 23, 2022.
AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko
A trial for example? This Monday in kyiv, Russian Sergeant Vadim Chichimarine was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a civilian on February 28, barely four days after Moscow launched the military invasion. Juvenile face and shaved head, this 21-year-old soldier, originally from Irkutsk in Siberia, listened without flinching to the verdict pronounced in Ukrainian then translated into Russian for his attention. He is the first Russian soldier to be tried for a war crime, less than three months after the fact.
“No executioner, no person who ordered or helped to commit crimes will escape justice.”