The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian war crimes, and Russia wants to set up its own tribunal to counter them. Hundreds of Ukrainians are to be charged. Bolivia, Iran and Syria are said to support the project.
Russia wants to try more than 200 Ukrainians for crimes against humanity before an international tribunal that has yet to be set up. Since the United Nations is dominated by the West, such a tribunal should instead be led by a partner organization of Russia, said the head of the Russian investigative committee, Alexander Bastrykin, in an interview with the state-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. According to him, Bolivia, Iran and Syria, among others, have expressed an interest in participating.
The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into Russian war crimes in Ukraine earlier this month. More than 1,300 criminal proceedings have already been initiated against more than 400 people for crimes against the civilian population in Donbass. In the preliminary investigations, a good 220 people were convicted of crimes against humanity and peace – charges that have not expired.
“92 commanders and their subordinates were charged, and 96 others, including 51 Ukrainian officers, were wanted,” Bastrykin reported. The former college friend of Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin also reported on investigations against Britons, Americans, Canadians, Dutch and Georgians for mercenary activities. They are accused of having fought on the side of Ukraine in the war.
The separatists in Donetsk, allied with the Russians, have already sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan to death for this reason. The appeal process is still ongoing. In Russia itself there is a moratorium on the death penalty.
Russia justified the invasion of Ukraine in February with the need to protect the Russian-speaking population, among other things. The Kremlin has named the “liberation” of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, only a small part of which was controlled by the separatists before the war, as a war goal.