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KYIV, Ukraine, May 23 (AP) \u2014 A captured Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a Ukrainian civilian was sentenced Monday to life in prison \u2014 the maximum \u2014 in the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded Ukraine three months ago.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in a rare public expression of opposition to the war from the ranks of the Russian elite, a veteran Kremlin diplomat resigned and sent a scathing letter to foreign colleagues in which he said, \u201cNever have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24 of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for \u201cmaximum\u201d sanctions against Russia in a video address to world leaders and executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.<\/p>\n
On the battlefield, heavy fighting raged in the Donbas in the east, where Moscow\u2019s forces have stepped up their bombardments. Cities not under Russian control were constantly shelled, and one Ukrainian military official said Russian forces targeted civilians trying to flee.<\/p>\n
In the first in what could be multitudes of similar prosecutions, Russian Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced for the killing of a a 62-year-old man who was shot in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region in the early days of the war. Shishimarin, a member of a tank unit, apologized to the man\u2019s widow in court.<\/p>\n
His Ukraine-appointed defense attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, argued his client had been unprepared for the \u201cviolent military confrontation\u201d and mass casualties that Russian troops encountered when they invaded. He said he would appeal.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian civil liberties advocate Volodymyr Yavorskyy said it was \u201can extremely harsh sentence for one murder during the war.\u201d But Aarif Abraham, a British-based human rights lawyer, said the trial was conducted \u201cwith what appears to be full and fair due process,\u201d including access to an attorney<\/p>\n
Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating thousands of potential war crimes. Russian forces in Mariupol bombed a theater where civilians were sheltering and struck a maternity hospital. In the wake of Moscow\u2019s withdrawal from around Kyiv weeks ago, mass graves were discovered and streets were strewn with bodies in towns such as Bucha.<\/p>\n
Other, more difficult cases may need to go to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, in the Netherlands, said Abraham, who specializes in international criminal law at Garden Court North Chambers in Manchester.<\/p>\n
Shishimarin had told the court that he at first disobeyed his immediate commanding officer\u2019s order to shoot the unarmed civilian but had no choice but to follow the order when it was repeated forcefully by another officer.<\/p>\n
Abraham, however, noted that following a order is not a defense under the law.<\/p>\n
Before the sentencing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was unable to defend the soldier \u201con the ground\u201d but will consider trying to do so \u201cthrough other channels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia and its allies have threatened to bring war crimes charges against Ukrainian soldiers, including the fighters who defended the steel plant in the ruined city of Mariupol before surrendering last week.<\/p>\n
Russian authorities have repeatedly leveled vague accusations of war crimes against the fighters and have seized upon the far-right origins of one of the regiments there.<\/p>\n
Family members of the fighters have pleaded for them to be given rights as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said he is open to \u201cany possibility that doesn\u2019t contradict common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Boris Bondarev, a veteran Russian diplomat to the U.N. office at Geneva, resigned and sent a letter railing against the \u201caggressive war unleashed\u201d by Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
In a rare, if not unprecedented, case public criticism from Russia\u2019s diplomatic corps, Bondarev, 41, told The Associated Press: \u201cIt is intolerable what my government is doing now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his letter, Bondarev said those who conceived the war \u201cwant only one thing \u2014 to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said Russia\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is all about \u201cwarmongering, lies and hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Davos forum, Zelenskyy said sanctions against the Kremlin need to go further. He urged an embargo on Russian oil, a complete cutoff of trade with Russia and a withdrawal of foreign companies from the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what sanctions should be: They should be maximum, so that Russia and every other potential aggressor that wants to wage a brutal war against its neighbor would clearly know the immediate consequences of their actions,\u201d said Zelenskyy, who received a standing ovation.<\/p>\n
On the battlefield, Russian forces increased bombardments in the Donbas, the eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories that Russia is bent on capturing.<\/p>\n
The chief of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said heavy fighting continued near the Luhansk region, with Russian forces \u201ctrying to break through and capture Lyman city so as to perform its offensive toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.\u201d The Donbas consists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.<\/p>\n
He said the Russian forces were decimating cities in their attempt to take them over. He said: \u201cThe main thing is to stop the enemy and then we can think about liberating the territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that only about 320,000 people out of the region\u2019s prewar population of 1.6 million remain and that Russian forces continue to target evacuation efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are killing us, they are killing the locals during evacuation,\u201d Kyrylenko said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t been able to see the sun for three months. We are almost blind because we were in darkness for three months,\u201d said Rayisa Rybalko, who hid with her family first in their basement and then in a bomb shelter at the local school before fleeing their village of Novomykhailivka. \u201cThe world should have seen that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her son-in-law Dmytro Khaliapin said heavy artillery pounded the village. \u201cHouses are being ruined,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a horror.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, Ukraine, May 23 (AP) \u2014 A captured Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a Ukrainian civilian was sentenced Monday to life in prison \u2014 the maximum \u2014 in the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded Ukraine three months ago. Meanwhile, in a rare public expression of opposition to the war from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-191484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}