International Court of Justice accuses two Russian officers of war crimes in Ukraine

The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two top Russian officers, charging them with war crimes in Ukraine for targeting civilians and destroying crucial energy infrastructure.

The two officers – Lieutenant General Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Nikolaevich Sokolov – are accused in a court statement of being personally responsible for numerous missile attacks by their forces on power stations and substations in multiple locations between October 2022 and March 2023. .

The winter attacks were defined as war crimes because they were largely directed against civilian targets, causing “excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” the court said.

General Kobylash is a senior Russian Air Force officer who commanded the country’s Long-Range Air Force during that period, while Admiral Sokolov was commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at the time.

The two are also charged with crimes against humanity for “intentionally causing great suffering” and serious physical or mental injury among the general population.

The court statement said that full details of the new arrest warrants would not be made public to protect witnesses and ensure further investigation. The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, is the only permanent international court with jurisdiction to deal with genocide, wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Although the Russians have repeatedly bombed civilian structures and killed countless civilians, lawyers familiar with the ICC investigation suggested that prosecutors chose this particular period because the evidentiary weight and clarity of the command structure known at the time could make charges easier. prove than many others.

This is the second time the court has issued arrest warrants in connection with the war in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. A year ago, judges issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights. rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the kidnapping and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Likewise, the limited scope of these charges, which drew criticism at the time, was a reflection of the prosecutor’s strategy of choosing a manageable case with a strong trail of public evidence, attorneys familiar with the case said at the time.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed the arrest warrants on Tuesday. “Any Russian commander who orders attacks on Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure must know that justice will be served,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Ukraine’s Attorney General Andriy Kostin was quoted by The Associated Press as saying the crimes involved were committed “on a large scale,” far from the front lines and without a clear military purpose.

The judges in The Hague called the Russian attacks disproportionate. Even if power installations were considered military objectives at the time, their statement said, the expected “civil damage would have been clearly excessive in relation to the expected military benefit.”

The International Criminal Court has no independent enforcement powers and is dependent on other countries to make arrests. It is therefore unlikely that General Kobylash and Admiral Sokolov will be arrested or tried.

Still, supporters of the court say the arrest warrants are more than political gestures because they show victims they are not being overlooked. And the arrest warrants can become the building blocks for a broader legal framework after the war.

Officials in Moscow have denied committing war crimes in Ukraine and have called the ICC’s arrest warrants and investigations pointless.

Although domestic courts in Ukraine have held some trials of Russians related to the war, none involved top officials.

Ukraine has not formally joined the ICC, which has 124 members, but has granted the court jurisdiction over its territory. Russia is also not a member, but the court can focus on crimes committed by Russian citizens on Ukrainian territory.