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Why people kill
The face of Ukraine’s war criminal, aged 21, prompts a look at motivations for atrocities that even ordinary people are capable of, in certain circumstances. How to combat the killer within?
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Vadim Shishimarin was the first Russian soldier to be convicted in May for the war crime of killing an unarmed civilian.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Many of us would have seen images of Russian tank commander Vadim Shishimarin in a Ukrainian court, wearing a blue and grey hooded sweatshirt, with his neck bent and his shaven head almost touching a glass partition.
Looking uncertain and very much his 21 years, he was the first Russian soldier to be convicted in May this year for the war crime of killing a 62-year-old unarmed civilian. He admitted to the shooting but said that he had been acting on orders.
