Russian soldier sentenced to life in prison for killing Ukrainian civilian

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Russian Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin listens to his translator during a court hearing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, May 23, 2022. The 21 year old soldier facing the first war crimes trial since the start of the war in Ukraine plead guilty on May 18 to killing an unarmed civilian. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A Ukrainian court sentenced a captured Russian soldier to the maximum penalty of life in prison for killing a civilian, and the Kremlin hinted that it may put on trial some of the fighters who surrendered at Mariupol’s steelworks.

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 Monday to foreign colleagues in which he said of the invasion, “Never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24.”

Also, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “maximum” sanctions against Russia in a video address to world leaders and executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Separately, he revealed one of the deadliest single strikes of the war, a missile attack on a village near Kyiv that killed almost 90 people.

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