Zaporizhia, Ukraine
Ukraine’s top prosecutor unveiled plans Wednesday for the first-ever war crimes trial of a captured Russian soldier, as fighting continued in the east and south and the Kremlin left open the possibility of annexing a corner of the country it took over. start of the invasion.
Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said her office has charged Sergeant Vadin Shyshimarin, 21, with the murder of a 62-year-old unarmed civilian who was shot while riding a bicycle in February, four days into the war.
Shyshimarin, who served in a tank unit, was accused of shooting through a car window at the man in the northeastern village of Chupakhivka. Ms Venediktova said the soldier could receive up to 15 years in prison. She did not say when the trial would start.
Ms. Venediktova’s office has said that it has been investigating more than 10,700 alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces and has identified more than 600 suspects.
Many of the alleged atrocities came to light last month after Moscow forces aborted their attempt to capture kyiv and withdrew from the outskirts of the capital, exposing mass graves and corpse-strewn streets and courtyards in cities like Bucha. Residents spoke of murder, burning, rape, torture and dismemberment.
Volodymyr Yavorskyy of the Center for Civil Liberties said the Ukrainian human rights group will closely monitor Shyshimarin’s trial to see if it is fair. “It is very difficult to observe all the rules, norms and neutrality of judicial proceedings in times of war,” he said.
Avoiding Russian gas
On the economic front, Ukraine has shut down a pipeline carrying Russian gas across the country to homes and industries in Western Europe, marking the first time since the start of the war that kyiv has disrupted the westward flow of one of the country’s most lucrative exports. from Moscow.
But the immediate effect is likely to be limited, in part because Russia can divert the gas to another pipeline and because Europe relies on a variety of suppliers.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin-based politician in the southern Kherson region, site of the first major Ukrainian city to fall in the war, said officials want Russian President Vladimir Putin to make Kherson a “proper region.” of Russia, that is, annex it. .
“The city of Kherson is Russia,” Kirill Stremousov, Moscow-appointed deputy head of the Kherson regional administration, told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.
That raised the possibility that the Kremlin was seeking to break up another part of Ukraine as it tries to salvage an invasion gone wrong. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which borders the Kherson region, after a disputed referendum in 2014, a move denounced as illegal and rejected by most of the international community.
Kherson, a Black Sea port of about 300,000 people, gives Crimea access to fresh water and is seen as a gateway to greater Russian control over southern Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “after all, it would be up to the residents of the Kherson region to decide whether such an appeal should be made or not.” He said any move to annex territory would have to be closely scrutinized by legal experts to make sure it was “absolutely legitimate, as it was with Crimea.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak scoffed at the idea of ​​annexing Kherson, tweeting: “Invaders can ask to join even Mars or Jupiter. The Ukrainian army will liberate Kherson, no matter what puns they play.”
Inside Kherson, people have taken to the streets to denounce the Russian occupation. But a teacher who gave only her first name, Olga, fearing Russian reprisals, said such protests are impossible now because Moscow troops “kidnapped activists and citizens simply for wearing Ukrainian colors or ribbons.” She said “people are afraid to speak openly outside their houses” and “everyone walks fast down the street.”
“All the people in Kherson are waiting for our troops to arrive as soon as possible,” he added. “No one wants to live in Russia or join Russia.”
ongoing battles
On the battlefield, Ukrainian officials said a Russian rocket attack targeted an area around Zaporizhzhia, destroying unspecified infrastructure. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The southeastern city has been a haven for civilians fleeing the devastated port city of Mariupol.
Russian forces continued to strike at the steel plant that is the last bastion of the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, its supporters said. The Azov Regiment said on social media that Russian forces carried out 38 airstrikes in the previous 24 hours on the Azovstal steelworks grounds.
The plant has housed hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians during months of siege.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that Ukraine has offered to release Russian prisoners of war if Russia allows seriously wounded fighters to be evacuated.
An aide to the mayor of Mariupol said Russian forces have blocked all evacuation routes out of the city. Petro Andriushchenko said there are few apartment buildings fit to live in and little food or drinking water. He said that some remaining residents are cooperating with the Russian occupation forces in exchange for food.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested on Tuesday that Ukraine’s military is gradually moving Russian troops away from Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city and key to Russia’s offensive in Donbas, the eastern industrial region whose capture, according to the Kremlin, is their main target.
Ukraine is also targeting Russian air defenses and resupply ships on Snake Island in the Black Sea in an effort to disrupt Moscow’s efforts to expand its control over the coastline, according to the British Defense Ministry.
Separately, Ukraine said it shot down a cruise missile that was targeting the Black Sea port city of Odessa.
Elsewhere, the governor of a Russian region near Ukraine said at least one civilian was killed and six wounded by Ukrainian shelling in the village of Solokhi near the border. The Governor of Belgorod. Vyacheslav Gladkov’s account could not be independently verified, but he said the village will be evacuated.
Ukraine’s natural gas pipeline operator said it took steps to stop the flow of Russian gas through a compressor station in a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists because enemy forces were interfering with the operation of the pipeline. station and extracting gas.
The hub handles about a third of the Russian gas that passes through Ukraine to Western Europe. But analysts said much of the gas may be redirected through another pipeline from Russia that runs through Ukraine, and there were signs that was happening. In any case, Europe also obtains natural gas from other gas pipelines and from other countries.
It was unclear if Russia would take any immediate hit, as it has long-term contracts and other ways to transport gas.
Still, the court underscored the broader risk to gas supplies from the war.
“Yesterday’s decision is a small preview of what could happen if gas facilities are affected by live fire and face the risk of prolonged downtime,” said gas analyst Zongqiang Luo at Rystad Energy.
In other developments, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry accused Russia of stealing Ukrainian grain and trying to sell it on global markets. The ministry estimates that Russia may have already stolen up to 500,000 metric tons of grain valued at more than $100 million.
And US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the West’s ban on sales of semiconductors and other technologies to Russia limits Russia’s ability to make military equipment. Ukrainians who found Russian equipment reported that it was “full of semiconductors that they took out of dishwashers and refrigerators,” Raimondo said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Jon Gambrell reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Yesica Fisch in Bakhmut, David Keyton in Kyiv, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Kelvin Chan in London, and AP World staff contributed.
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