a court has found a russian soldier
guilty of killing an unarmed civilian
sentenced him to life in prison that
comes as russia steps up its assault on
the dambus with the region of lou hanks
bearing the brunt of the offensive nbc
news correspondent erin mclaughlin joins
us now from kharkiv aaron good morning a
guilty verdict handed down on that
russian soldier along with a life
sentence how significant is this moment
well it's extremely significant for
ukraine 21 year old vadim shishimaran
being found guilty having pled guilty to
killing a 52-year-old unarmed
civilian outside of the city of sumi as
russia was approaching
that city
he not only pled guilty but he also
apologized to the widow of this man who
was
shot and killed gunned down according to
shishimaran under the orders of
russian soldiers but this is the kind of
accountability that ukrainian officials
have been pushing for there's a current
sort of full court press here especially
concentrated on the areas once occupied
by russian forces that ukrainian forces
have managed to push them out of to get
in there and investigate as many of
these alleged crimes as possible we were
in a village outside of the city of
harkiev earlier today seeing just that
as prosecutors combed through the home
of a 51 year old man who was also gunned
down by russian soldiers they alleged
they exhumed his body they examined the
evidence and
and and speaking to the prosecutor
earlier today here in harkeev they also
plan on moving forward with that case
the difference being though that they do
not have any suspects identified at this
time and that's going to be a real
challenge going forward for ukraine's
judicial system given the fact that many
of these atrocities were committed uh in
occupied areas with little evidence in
terms of the identification of the
suspect behind
the alleged murders and other atrocities
including torture and aaron you're in
kharkiv as you said obviously the scene
of a successful ukrainian counter
offensive what's the situation there on
the ground right now
yeah analysts had said that ukraine won
the battle for harkiev successfully
pushing russian forces away from the
city out of
artillery striking range although what
we're seeing right now to the north of
harkeev essentially russian forces
digging in according to ukrainian
officials this morning they're setting
up checkpoints and other infrastructure
we're also hearing a number of
explosions the number of missile strikes
over the weekend so it's very clear that
russian forces are not giving up this
fight at this point we
just yesterday were out at a local fire
station speaking to fire officials they
told us within the span of 48 hours they
were fighting 10 fires that were the
results of russia's aggression and they
described how their role as firefighters
has changed take a listen
uh be chestery and liam our work is the
same but more complicated we continue to
fight fires but now we have to do it
under constant shelling and when we're
going to the fires it's a bit scary but
once we're on the scene we know only we
can save the people and it's our job
i asked that firefighter given the
continued russian aggression if he's
optimistic about the future of his city
and his country he said that he is that
he is doing everything he can to help in
this fight
all right erin mclaughlin thanks so much
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