International Prosecutor to Probe Possible War Crimes in Ukraine

Karim Khan. Photo: ICC

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, said on Monday that he has decided to proceed “as rapidly as possible” with opening an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Khan said in a statement on the court’s website that there is “a reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine”.

“I have already tasked my team to explore all evidence preservation opportunities,” he said.

Although Ukraine is not an ICC member state, it has officially accepted the jurisdiction of the international court, which allows Khan to investigate.

Khan said that authorisation for the opening of an investigation would be speeded up if an ICC member referred the situation to his office.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte has already said that her government intends to ask the ICC to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

“There is new material coming in every day, but we have enough of it by now to file the request,” Simonyte said on Monday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alleged on Tuesday that Russia committed a war crime by deliberately targeting civilians during attacks on the city of Kharkiv which left dozens of people dead, BBC News reported.

“It was clearly a war crime. Peaceful city. Peaceful residential areas. No military facilities,” Zelensky said.

International human rights groups have accused Russia of using cluster bombs in populated civilian areas of Ukraine during the ongoing invasion.

A residential area of Kyiv after shelling by Russian forces on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE/SERGEY DOLZHENKO.

Amnesty International said on Sunday that cluster munitions were dropped on a nursery and kindergarten in the town of Okhtyrka in north-east Ukraine where locals were taking shelter from the conflict.

“The attack appears to have been carried out by Russian forces, which were operating nearby, and which have a shameful record of using cluster munitions in populated areas,” Amnesty International said in a statement.

It added that “the strike may constitute a war crime”.

Human Rights Watch said on Friday that a Russian ballistic missile carrying cluster munitions struck near a hospital in Vuhledar in eastern Ukraine, killing four civilians and injuring another ten, six of them healthcare workers.

“Russian forces should stop using cluster munitions and end unlawful attacks with weapons that indiscriminately kill and maim,” Steve Goose, arms director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

There is an international treaty banning the use of cluster munitions but neither Russian nor Ukraine has signed up to it.

The news of a possible investigation by the ICC prosecutor follows an announcement by Ukraine on Sunday that it has filed a suit against Russia at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Moscow of making false allegations of genocide to bolster its case for war.

Ukraine asked the UN’s top court to begin proceedings against Russia because it claims that Moscow has falsely interpreted the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in order to support its arguments for an invasion.

Ukraine argued that “the Russian Federation has falsely claimed that acts of genocide have occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts [in eastern Ukraine]”, which it used as justification to recognise Russian-sponsored enclaves there as independent states and then launch a war in their ‘defence’.