The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced this Tuesday arrest warrants against the former Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoiguand the chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimovfor war crimes and crimes against humanity between October 2022 and March 2023 during the invasion of Ukraine.
The court said in a statement that the orders were issued because the judges considered there were reasonable grounds to believe that the men are responsible for “missile attacks carried out by the Russian armed forces against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure” from October 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023.
“During this period, the Russian armed forces carried out a large number of attacks against numerous electrical power plants and substations in multiple locations in Ukraine.”the court added.
There is no immediate likelihood that any of the suspects will be arrested. Russia is not a member of the global court, does not recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to hand over suspects.
Last year, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, charging him with personal responsibility for the kidnappings of Ukrainian children.
Putin replaced Shoigu as defense minister in a cabinet reshuffle in May as he began his fifth term as president. He appointed Shoigu as secretary of the Russian Security Council, the Kremlin said.
The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber approved the arrest warrants, holding both senior officials of the Russian Government responsible for war crimes for “directing attacks at civilian targets and for causing excessive collateral damage to civilians and civilian objects”as well as a crime against humanity for “inhuman acts” defined in the Rome Statute.
The ICC prosecutor, Karim Khanasked the Chamber to approve these arrest warrants, in which it accuses Shoigu and Gerasimov of being presumed “criminally responsible” for having committed these criminal acts, ordering their commission and/or not exercising adequate control over the forces under his command to prevent the commission of these crimes.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the two suspects are responsible for the missile attacks carried out by the Russian armed forces against the Ukrainian electrical infrastructure from at least October 10, 2022 to at least March 9, 2023.”noted the three judges that make up the Preliminary Matters Chamber.
During that period, the Russian armed forces carried out “a large number of attacks against numerous electrical power plants and substations in multiple locations” in Ukraine.
The Chamber also sees “reasonable grounds” to believe that “the alleged attacks were directed against civilian objects, and that for those facilities that could have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time, the expected collateral damage to civilians and civilian objects would have been clearly excessive compared to the anticipated military advantage ”.
Furthermore, it denounced that “the alleged campaign of attacks constitutes a course of conduct that involves the multiple commission of acts against a civilian population, carried out in accordance with state policy,” which leads to believe that the suspects “intentionally caused a great suffering or serious injuries to the body or mental or physical health, thus being criminally responsible for the crime against humanity.”
Although the content of the orders is issued as “secret” to protect witnesses and safeguard ongoing investigations, the Chamber did authorize the public disclosure of the existence of these arrest warrants, as well as the names of the suspects and the crimes of the suspects. that they are accused of.
These two arrest warrants are not the first that the ICC has issued in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since February 2022. Last March, the arrest of two Russian soldiers was ordered, Lieutenant General of the Russian Armed Forces Sergey Kobylashand the admiral of the Russian Navy, Viktor Sokolov.
A year earlier, the ICC ordered the arrest of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Russian politician Maria Lvova-Belova, presidential commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian minors and their transfer from occupied areas in Ukraine to Russia, a war crime under the Rome Statute. EFE
(With information from EFE and AP)
