In the photo I have just seen Vadim Shishimarin is in the dock, hanging his head. He is 21, but looks about 15 as he stands there in the polycarbonate box, the first Russian soldier to be charged and tried in Ukraine for a war crime. He holds the rank of sergeant and was a tank commander. At 21? (I’m embarrassed to recall how immature I was at 21.) It is likely he has a mother: I wonder how she is feeling right now, but think I can make a good guess.
My middle son enlisted in the Greek Army when he was 19. I was, naturally enough, opposed to the idea, and well remember trying to talk him out of his decision. My final argument went like this:
‘What are you going to do when you find yourself having to obey orders that are against your conscience?’
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes.’
‘But it’ll be too late then.’
Predictably, I failed to dissuade him, and he went on to have a solid career as a marine commando in the Greek Special Forces, during which protracted time I switched my head off very regularly. And still do not want to know too much about his tours of duty in Bosnia and on the Greek borders, all of which are well behind him now.
Shishimarin has admitted his guilt, and has professed himself ready to take and endure the punishment meted out to him. It appears that he was in a car with other Russian soldiers. They were trying to retreat when they saw a cyclist, an unarmed civilian, get off his bike, and start to use his mobile phone. His name was Oleksandr Shelipov, and he was 62. The Russians feared he was about to betray their position, and Shishimarin maintains he was obeying orders when he shot the man. He has asked the man’s widow to forgive him: she says she understands his actions, but cannot forgive him. He is also on record as saying, ‘I didn’t want to be there, but it happened.’ And one wonders what would have happened to him had he disobeyed the order.
'I think of the soldier, the victim, the mother and the widow, and of one of Owen’s most famous lines: The pity of war, the pity of war distilled.'
Many things simply happen in war, and the reactions of those involved are most often unpredictable. My