Ukraine Holds First War Crimes Trial: Defendant Sergeant Of Russian Tank Unit, Shoots Dead 62-Year-Old Man While Cycling

Illustration of forensic officers examining a corpse in Bucha City. (Wikimedia Commons/npu.gov.ua/National Police of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Ukraine's attorney general unveiled plans Wednesday for the first war crimes trial against a captured Russian soldier, as fighting rages on in the east and south, with the Kremlin opening the door to annexing a corner of the country it captured at the start of the invasion.

Attorney General Iryna Venediktova said her office charged Sergeant Vadin Shyshimarin, 21, in the murder of an unarmed 62-year-old civilian who was shot dead while riding a bicycle in February, four days after the war.

Shyshimarin, who served with a tank unit, is accused of shooting through a car window at men in the northeastern village of Chupakhivka. Venediktova said the soldier could get up to 15 years in prison.

However, he did not say when the trial would begin, as quoted by the Daily Sabah on May 12.

Venediktova's office said it had investigated more than 10,700 alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops, identifying more than 600 suspects.

Many of the alleged atrocities came to light last month, after Moscow forces abandoned their efforts to seize Kyiv and withdrew from around the capital, exposing mass graves and streets and courtyards littered with corpses in cities like Bucha.

Meanwhile, the civilian population told of killings, arson, rape, torture and dismemberment.

Separately, Volodymyr Yavorskyy of the Center for Civil Liberties said Ukrainian human rights groups would follow Shyshimarin's trial to see if it was fair.

"It is very difficult to comply with all the rules, norms and neutrality of litigation in wartime," he said.

As previously reported, the Ukrainian government is preparing charges against at least seven Russian soldiers for war crimes, including three pilots suspected of bombing civilian buildings in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office.

The other four are two rocket launcher operators who allegedly opened fire on residential areas in the Kharkiv region, as well as two soldiers who are suspected of killing a Kyiv resident and raping his wife.

Attorney General Iryna Venediktova was quoted as saying many of the suspects were in Russia but some had been held by Ukraine as prisoners of war.

Venediktova added that she plans to prosecute both in Ukrainian courts and at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the world's permanent war crimes tribunal.