(The Hague) The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for alleged war crimes in Ukraine against two top Russian military officials, the heads of the Strategic Aviation and the Sea Fleet Black.
“Any Russian commander who orders strikes against Ukrainian civilians and essential infrastructure must know that justice will be done,” reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the social network X to the announcement of this measure.
In the spring of 2023, the ICC, which sits in The Hague, also issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in the deportation of children living in Ukraine.
The two high-ranking officers now targeted by the International Criminal Court are Sergei Kobylach, the commander of the long-range aviation of the aerospace forces, and Viktor Sokolov, that of the Black Sea Fleet.
They are presumed responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed when missiles were fired at numerous electrical infrastructures in different locations in Ukraine between “at least October 10, 2022 and at least March 9, 2023,” explained the ICC.
These men are alleged to have led these attacks and caused excessive accidental damage to civilians or non-military property.
They are also suspected of having been responsible for “inhumane acts”, qualified as crimes against humanity, again according to the Court.
There is reason to “believe that they bear individual criminal responsibility for the above-mentioned crimes,” she said.
Either by having committed the acts together, or through others, or by having ordered the commission of the crimes or by having been incapable of controlling the men under their command, added the ICC.
“Several months of work”
According to the state news agency TASS, Sergei Kobylach, born on 1er April 1965 in Odessa, in the south of Ukraine – at the time one of the fifteen entities forming the USSR –, was first a fighter-bomber pilot. He participated in the two Chechen wars as well as the Russian offensive against Georgia in August 2008 during which his SU-25 plane was hit by fire, leading him to eject.
According to the website of the Russian Defense Ministry, the long-range aviation that it has led since September 16, 2016 is a component of the nuclear deterrent forces.
Made up of strategic bombers, tanker planes and reconnaissance planes, it is equipped with cruise missiles, bombs and other conventional or atomic munitions and its main missions are to target air bases “in strategic depth”. , aircraft carriers, military industries, political centers, ports and energy infrastructure of the enemy.
Viktor Sokolov was born on April 4, 1962 in Moldova, also a Soviet republic at the time, and served for more than 20 years in the Pacific Fleet before being deputy commander of the Northern Fleet between 2013 and 2020. , then to become the head of the Black Sea Fleet in September 2022, we learn in his official biography.
The ICC, created in 2002 to try the worst crimes committed in the world, opened an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are members of the ICC but the latter country has accepted the court’s jurisdiction over its territory and is working with the prosecutor.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, present in Brussels on Tuesday for a meeting of European Ministers of Justice, was “grateful to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan and his team”.
“It took several months of dedicated work from Ukrainian prosecutors, investigators and different Ukrainian agencies who provided the ICC Prosecutor’s Office with thousands of pieces of evidence and information,” Kostin said.
The ICC’s 123 member states are required to execute arrest warrants against Mr Putin, Sergei Kobylach and Viktor Sokolov if they visit their territory.
The ICC does not have its own police force. The execution of mandates therefore depends on international cooperation.