International Court to Open War Crimes Cases Against Russia, Officials Say - 13.03.23
- Michael Julien
- Mar 14, 2023
- 3 min read
The cases before the International Criminal Court would accuse Russia of abducting Ukrainian children and of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure - article by Marlise Simons for The New York Times.
The International Criminal Court intends to open two war crimes cases tied to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and will seek arrest warrants for several people, according to current and former officials with knowledge of the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The cases represent the first international charges to be brought forward since the start of the conflict and come after months of work by special investigation teams. They allege that Russia abducted Ukrainian children and teenagers and sent them to Russian re-education camps, and that the Kremlin deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure.
The chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, must first present his charges to a panel of pretrial judges who will decide whether the legal standards have been met for issuing arrest warrants, or whether investigators need more evidence.
It was not clear whom the court planned to charge in each case. Asked to confirm the requests for arrest warrants, the prosecutor’s office said, “We do not publicly discuss specifics related to ongoing investigations.”
Some outside diplomats and experts said it was possible that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could be charged, as the court does not recognize immunity for a head of state in cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
Still, the likelihood of a trial remains slim, experts say, as the court cannot hear cases in absentia and Russia is unlikely to surrender its own officials.
The Kremlin has denied accusations of war crimes, but international and Ukrainian investigators have gathered powerful evidence of an array of atrocities since the invasion’s early days.
The first case, the briefed officials said, deals with the widely reported abduction of Ukrainian children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers. As part of a Kremlin-sponsored program, they were taken from Ukraine and placed in homes to become Russian citizens or sent to summer camps to be re-educated, The New York Times and researchers have found. Some came from orphanages or group homes.
Moscow has made no secret of its program, presenting it as a humanitarian mission to protect orphaned or abandoned Ukrainian children from the war.
The State of the War
On the Front Lines: From Kupiansk to Bakhmut, Russian forces are attacking along a 160-mile arc in eastern Ukraine in an intensifying struggle for tactical advantage before possible spring offensives.
War Crime Cases: The International Criminal Court intends to open two war crimes cases tied to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The cases accuse Russia of abducting Ukrainian children and of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.
Testing Swiss Neutrality: The Alpine nation makes arms that Western allies want to send to Ukraine. Swiss law bans this, driving a national debate about whether its concept of neutrality should change.
Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, the program’s public face, began sending children to Russia within weeks after the invasion began in February 2022 and has regularly appeared on television to promote adoptions. Mr. Putin signed a decree last May to speed up access to Russian citizenship for Ukrainians.
Mr. Khan, the prosecutor, has publicly signaled his intentions to pursue this case, saying that illegal transfers of children to Russia or to occupied parts of Ukraine were a priority for his investigators.
Earlier this month, he visited a children’s home in southern Ukraine, now vacated, and his office posted a photograph of him standing among empty cots. “Children cannot be treated as the spoils of war,” he said in a statement following his visit.
A report published in February by Yale University and the Conflict Observatory program of the U.S. State Department said that at least 6,000 children from Ukraine were being held in a total of 43 camps in Russia, with the actual number thought to be higher. The National Information Bureau of the Ukrainian government said that as of early March it could be more than 16,000.
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Marlise Simons is a correspondent in the Paris bureau, focusing on international justice and war-crimes tribunals. In almost four decades at The New York Times, she has been based in France and Italy to report about Europe and previously covered Latin America from posts in Brazil and Mexico.
A version of this article appears in print on March 14, 2023, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: An International Court Is Said to Plan 2 War Crimes Cases Against Russia. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Russian forces have repeatedly knocked out power in Ukraine. A blackout in Mykolaiv in December. Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
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