After information gathering, action.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is preparing to open two war crime investigations against Russia and could even issue arrest warrants against “nearly fifteen Russian nationals” for their direct involvement in the war of invasion launched more than a year ago against Ukraine, confirmed on Tuesday to the Duty a source familiar with the ongoing proceedings in The Hague, Netherlands.
The prospect of these investigations and the issuance of these warrants, revealed earlier this week by the New York Timeswas received with contempt by the Kremlin, which on Tuesday, through the voice of its spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, indicated that Russia was not subject to the rules of this international body.
“We do not recognize this court. We do not recognize its jurisdiction,” he said, quoted by the Interfax agency.
Nevertheless, after several months of investigations and meetings on the ground with dozens of Ukrainian victims of this conflict, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, is about to bring the first international charges against Russia, since the beginning of the war, by opening two official investigations: one relating to the abduction of Ukrainian children and adolescents and their deportation to re-education camps in Russia, and the other, the deliberate destruction by the Kremlin of civilian infrastructure, including transport networks, electricity networks, schools, hospitals, etc. This targeting of vital and social components aims to undermine the morale of the Ukrainian population and force its surrender. In vain, for more than a year.
The Russia of [Vladimir] Putin is at the origin, in Ukraine, of war crimes and crimes against humanity which are probably part of a genocidal tactic. This is a criminal plan unprecedented in modern times that aims to subjugate Ukrainians and force them to give up their identity.
The war crime charges are to be presented in the coming days before a panel of judges, who will assess the merit and strength of the evidence, but also decide to issue possible arrest warrants to drag several of those responsible for these crimes in court.
The names of the people targeted by these warrants have not been released. Among them, however, could be the Russian commissioner for the rights of the child, Maria Lvova-Belova, who since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine has become the public image of the program of deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and the great promoter of their adoption by Russian couples.
Last February, a report by the Yale University Conflict Observatory revealed that Russia was running a mass abduction and deportation program targeting Ukrainian children: 6,000 of them were forcibly sent to Russia. in 43 “rehab camps,” the group says. The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, claim that more than 16,000 children have been victims of this war crime.
“We shouldn’t expect too much from the proceedings brought by the ICC on the course of the war. These steps are generally slow and complex. But it is essential that this tribunal demonstrate its relevance,” commented in an interview with the Duty Wayne Jordash, British lawyer in international law for the Global Rights Compliance Foundation. Since last year, the man has been leading a team of lawyers on the ground in Ukraine to help the justice system of the former Soviet republic bring to light, document and analyze evidence of war crimes in this country.
Among other things, his group has just brought to light the existence of a network of 20 torture chambers, used systemically by Kremlin forces, in several besieged cities in Ukraine.
“The Russia of [Vladimir] Putin is at the origin, in Ukraine, of war crimes and crimes against humanity which are probably part of a genocidal tactic, he adds. This is a criminal plan unprecedented in modern times that aims to subjugate Ukrainians and force them to give up their identity. As architect of this terrible plan, [le président russe] will, in due course, also have to face an arrest warrant and be brought before the courts. If the ICC prosecution does not move forward to prosecute those most responsible, then this will be a significant failure of international justice. »
Joined by The duty, the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court declined to comment on Tuesday on the progress of the proceedings, the body refusing to discuss publicly the “ongoing investigations”. Assessing charges for war crimes charges can take months before leading to arrest warrants.
Since last fall and the systematic bombardment of the Ukrainian power grid, in order to use winter and cold as a weapon in its war of invasion, Russia has regularly denied targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, claiming instead that its attacks seek only to reduce the ability of the Ukrainian army to fight.
In addition, the Kremlin boasts of having supervised the transfer of millions of Ukrainian civilians to its territory since February 2022, including more than 720,000 children, according to figures reported by the Russian media under the control of the Vladimir dictatorship. Cheese fries. This migration would respond to “humanitarian reasons”, claims Moscow, to protect orphans and abandoned children in conflict zones.
Russia is one of the signatory countries of the Rome Statute, which in 2000 participated in the founding of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but Moscow has never ratified the agreement to become a member.
Worse, in 2016, the Kremlin even decided to reverse its first signature, the day after an international tribunal report classifying the annexation of Crimea, initiated in 2014 by Russia, as an illegal occupation of the territory. Ukrainian.