Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘He killed with a very cold heart’: Meet the Ukrainian prosecutor bringing war criminals to justice

Last month, Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old Russian soldier, was jailed for life. His sentence marked the first successful war-crimes prosecution since the conflict in Ukraine began.

On the fourth day of the invasion, after coming under fire, Shishimarin and four other soldiers hijacked a car and drove around looking for other units to join. They stopped in the north-eastern village of Chupakhivka where they came across 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov. Fearing he might share their location, Shishimarin shot him.

Captured by Ukrainian troops, Shishimarin pleaded guilty in court, but said he was acting on orders. Shelipov’s widow was in court and addressed the killer directly: ‘Tell me please, why did you [Russians] come here? To protect us? Did you protect me from my husband, whom you killed?’

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Vadim Shishimarin at a courthouse in Kyiv on May 23, 2022 (Getty Images)

The trial was the start of an historic exercise: the prosecution of war crimes while the war is going on, with a timetable faster than most countries manage during peace. The aim is not just to bring war criminals to justice. It’s also to put the fear of conviction into the minds of Russians occupying the east of Ukraine – to emphasise that in the smartphone age atrocities are easily recorded and crimes can be made public. Even wrongdoers who escape back to Russia will know that their names and the evidence against them will be published digitally.

‘Let’s draw a line under this and move on.’

Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, is leading the investigations. She’s using Ukrainian courts (the International Criminal Court takes longer and isn’t recognised by Russia or the US) and has to demonstrate to the wider world that the prosecutions aren’t stunts or show trials. To do this, she is receiving help from the UK, which is dispatching war-crime experts, and may also send police detectives to gather evidence to an international standard.

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