Nine years have passed since the incident at a trilateral post of the peacekeeping forces in the Transnistrian region resulted in the death of a local, Vadim Pisari. In 2015, the European Court of Human Rights convicted Russia, ascertaining the violation of Article 2 of the European Convention – right to life. Russia paid the damages awarded by the ECHR. Even if a reinvestigation was ordered, no headway was made in this case.

Vadim Pisari, 18, was shot dead in January 2012 by a service member of the Russian peacekeeping forces, while he was trying to cross the bridge over the Nistru in Vadul lui Vodă town. The Russian Prosecutor’s Office decided that the service member acted legally and stopped the investigation.

In 2015, the ECHR held that the Russian peacekeeper didn’t need to use the firearm and ascertained that the right of Vadim Pisari’s relatives to take part in the investigation opened by Russia was violated. Russia was obliged to pay €35,000 damages to the young man’s parents and €6,000 court costs. The ECHR also obliged Russia to take legal action against the service member who fired at Pisari.

Contacted by IPN for details, lawyer Alexandru Postica, of Promo-LEX Association, said the decision to stop the investigation taken by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office in 2013 was annulled. But it seems that the case was put in another drawer. Currently, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is the body that monitors the way in which this is investigated. After 2016, no significant progress has been made in this regard.

“I think the investigation procedure was vitiated. It will be very hard, not to say impossible, to discover the truth, especially because the Russian authorities’ position on the Russian soldier is clear. There is a court judgment saying that the Russian state violated the right to life. As regards the individual investigation of the person who committed the offense, I doubt it that a conviction decision will be ultimately made,” stated Alexandru Postica.