The blood-chilling images have gone around the planet: we see corpses lying in the streets, some of them with their wrists tied behind their backs. Within a dismayed international community, several voices are rising to demand a war crimes investigation into the murders of civilians allegedly perpetrated by Russian forces in the town of Boutcha, on the outskirts of kyiv.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, 300 people buried in mass graves have been found, in addition to the corpses which litter the streets of this small town which the Russians deserted during the weekend. A first report on Sunday reported 410 dead. “We found people with their hands and legs tied up […] with bullet holes in the back of the head,” the spokesman for the Ukrainian president, Serguiy Nikiforovil, told the BBC.
“I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders are carried out […]. And they have a common responsibility. For these murders, for these tortures, for the arms torn off by explosives […] said President Volodymyr Zelensky in a video message. He announced that a “special mechanism” would be created to investigate “all Russian crimes” in Ukraine. Throughout the West, the indignation is palpable.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, promised the contribution of the United States to “document” possible “war crimes”. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has called for an investigation into the matter. And the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, promised that the European Union would help “Ukraine and NGOs to gather the necessary evidence for prosecution in international courts”. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also reacted by condemning the “shocking and horrifying” killings of civilians. “Those responsible for these attacks […] will be brought to justice,” he added.
How to explain such an outcry at this precise moment, when the horror of war has been raging for more than a month? “These are the strongest images when it comes to war crimes,” explains Pierre Jolicoeur, full professor in the Department of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada. “Martyr cities which are bombarded almost daily like Mariupol, it is also a war crime, but these images [celles de Boutcha] are the most shocking,” he added. According to him, the photos of the corpses are “devastating for the reputation of Russia, or at least for what was left of it”.
But for the specialist, the barbaric actions of Russia, which go against the Geneva Convention, are not a surprise. “The latest military interventions by Russian forces have never complied with the laws of war. They targeted civilians and bombed without embarrassment,” he notes, citing as an example the conflicts that have raged in recent years in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria.
The Russian army has denied killing civilians in Boutcha. She assured that she withdrew from it on March 30 and accused Ukraine of having fabricated the images “for the Western media”.
As Russian troops retreat from the kyiv region to regroup in the southeast of the country, they leave behind destroyed and battered cities. “As the Russian forces withdraw, we will see other crimes of this type,” predicts Pierre Jolicoeur.
And according to the professor, an aggravating factor of barbarism in Ukraine is the lack of condemnation of these murders of civilians by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. While there is what seems to be a silent consent on the side of the Kremlin, Pierre Jolicoeur envisages “that we will witness more of these events in the coming weeks”.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for an “independent investigation” into Boutcha’s crimes. And last week, the UN Human Rights Council, on which Russia sits until 2023, approved the creation of an international commission of inquiry into human rights violations. human rights and humanitarian law in Ukraine.
On the legal side and depending on the evolution of the case, it is possible to envisage a possible trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. “There will be a special Russian war crimes tribunal in the not too distant future,” believes Eric Ouellet, full professor of Defense Studies at the Canadian Forces College. “I think there will be a trial that will put in place all the evidence, a bit like the Nuremberg trial,” he argues, referring to the famous trial brought against the main officials of the Third Reich in 1945.
In the event of a Russian victory, however, the impacts of such a trial would remain limited. “I think there will be a trial regardless of the outcome of the war, he says, but it remains to be seen whether the accused will be there. »
Canada in all of this
The two experts are of the opinion that Canada’s influence in this war remains limited. “Canada can continue to join the chorus of current critics,” notes Pierre Jolicoeur. Other sanctions could also be considered by the West. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday demanded new sanctions against Russia, including a total energy embargo, the closure of ports to any Russian ships or goods and the disconnection of all Russian banks from the platform. international financial Swift.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has also come out in favor of new sanctions. It remains to be seen whether the Trudeau government will follow suit. For Eric Ouellet, however, “Canada could play a much more important role, but whether the people in Ottawa want to do it, that’s another question.” According to him, “Canada could exert much stronger diplomatic pressure to set up a special tribunal against Russia”.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths visited Moscow on Sunday and is expected to travel to Kyiv next to seek a humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia had so far refused any visit by a senior UN official whose main subject was Ukraine.
Russia-Ukraine talks continue regardless, as Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky on Sunday praised a ‘more realistic’ stance from kyiv, which would be willing, conditionally, to accept neutral status and denuclearized claimed by Moscow.
On the side of the besieged cities, the Russian troops who try to consolidate their positions still come up against strong Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol. According to local authorities, 160,000 civilians are still stranded there and at least 5,000 residents have been killed there. Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, is still “partially blocked” by Russian forces. As for the port city of Odessa, it was shaken by explosions on Sunday morning.
With Agence France-Presse