The International Criminal Court (ICC) said Tuesday that arrest warrants for Russia’s top army chief and ex-defence minister had been issued by it over strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure that accounted for alleged war crimes.
The ICC warrants are the latest in a series of actions by the court over the Ukraine war, including an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The warrants, issued on Monday but made public on Tuesday, concerned the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and former defence minister Sergei Shoigu.
The two men are accused of the war crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians, as well as the crime against humanity of “inhumane acts” in Ukraine, the ICC said in a statement.
ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the two suspects bear responsibility for missile strikes carried out by the Russian armed forces against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March 2023.”
The court said these strikes were “directed against civilian objects” and even when targets could be considered military, civilian damage “would have been clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage.”
Ukraine hailed the “important” decision, with the the presidency’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak saying: “Everyone will be held accountable for evil.”
The ICC, based in The Hague, does not have its own police force for enforcing the arrest warrants. It relies on the justice systems of its 124 members to carry them out.
In theory, anyone under a warrant is prevented from travelling to an ICC member state for fear of arrest.
Putin himself has travelled abroad, notably to Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are not ICC member states.
However, he did skip a meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in South Africa, which would have been expected to carry out the warrant.
