How War Crimes and the Crime of Aggression Are Being Pursued Against Russia

Usually, it’s only after fighting ends that prosecutions begin for breaking the rules of war. Ukraine isn’t waiting. It began putting captured Russian soldiers on trial in May. But what about the political and military leaders higher up the chain of command? An international tribunal is investigating war crimes and other potential atrocities in Ukraine, and now the European Union has proposed creating a special new court to consider whether Russia has committed the so-called crime of aggression against its neighbor. However, it’s far from certain that senior Russian leaders will be brought to justice under international law.

They are violations of the rules of warfare as set out in various treaties, notably the Geneva Conventions, a series of agreements concluded between 1864 and 1949. War crimes include willful killing, torture, rape, using starvation as a weapon, shooting combatants who have surrendered, deploying banned weapons such as chemical and biological arms, and deliberately attacking civilian targets. A UN commission said in October that it had found evidence of an array of such crimes in Ukraine, with Russian forces responsible for the vast majority. The Kremlin has rejected such allegations. Ukrainian authorities say they opened an investigation after video emerged in November suggesting Ukrainian fighters fired on surrendering Russian soldiers at close range. The US military has also asserted that Russia’s concerted bombing campaign against Ukraine’s civilian power grid as winter approached constituted a war crime, a view echoed by Amnesty International.