Paris, February 24, 2023. A year ago, on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) member organizations in Ukraine, the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) have documented almost 30,000 alleged crimes under international law. These figures do not hide the pain of relatives and the death of thousands of victims, aggravated by the impunity of Russian power. FIDH and all of its member organizations call on international institutions and governments to step up their efforts so that justice is done in Ukraine, in the name of peace and security in the world.
A year ago, the world woke up in shock to the news of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces. The attempt was clearly to conquer the capital, Kyiv, and overthrow the democratically elected government. FIDH strongly condemned the Russian aggression, as did the international community. The Ukrainian defense resisted this offensive, but the suffering of the Ukrainian people had only just begun. For 12 months, the CCL, the KHPG and other Ukrainian NGOs members of the coalition ” a court for Putin » have documented about 30,000 cases of alleged crimes under international law. Most were committed by the Russian armed forces in the areas they occupied, and include summary executions, torture, illegal confinement, ill-treatment, rape and other sexual violence. National investigations have already been opened in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, for many of these cases of untold violence. Similarly, several Russian soldiers are currently on trial for violating conventions and the law of war.
Many international accountability mechanisms have been set up to investigate and facilitate the prosecution of possible violations of international humanitarian law. These include the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) Ukraine Monitoring Initiative, the Joint Eurojust investigation and investigations by more than ten other national war crimes investigation units and international mobile justice teams. The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a full investigation into the situation in Ukraine in March 2022.
The effective cooperation between these mechanisms and their complementarity, as well as their meaningful engagement with victims and civil society will be decisive. The ICC has no jurisdiction to try crimes of aggression related to the situation in Ukraine. As the court of last resort prosecuting those most responsible, it will investigate and prosecute only a handful of cases, a tiny fraction of the violations already documented. The vast majority of cases will be left to Ukraine and other national jurisdictions under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Moreover, these mechanisms will not suffice to put an end to the impunity of the Russian authorities for the crimes committed by its armed forces or its private militias in Ukraine, but also in Syria, Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya and previously in Georgia and Chechnya. Several factors account for this situation, including a lack of political will and the inability to prosecute crimes of such magnitude nationally and internationally.
International consequences of the Russian military invasion
The Russian military invasion of its Ukrainian neighbor has not only increased regional insecurity. It has also disrupted the global food supply, accelerated inflation and generated serious political, economic and social repercussions that will last on all continents.
The Ukrainian population sought refuge as far away as North America and Latin America. Countries such as Lebanon, Egypt and Indonesia have suffered severe food shortages caused by the scarcity of Ukrainian wheat deliveries. National mobilization in the Russian Armed Forces caused an exodus of the Russian population to countries in Central Asia, Georgia and Armenia. At the same time, the private Wagner militia proceeded to a muscular recruitment of volunteers in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Serbia, Zambia and Côte d’Ivoire. At the same time, human rights violations committed by the Wagner militia in Syria, the Central African Republic, Libya, Mozambique and Mali go unpunished. This impunity tacitly encourages the brutal methods of Russia, which wishes to expand its influence in Africa.
By thus supporting fragile or authoritarian regimes, Russia obtains in return operating permits to plunder their natural resources. Russia has also cemented its ties with repressive governments in the Middle East and Asia by expanding its arms trade with Iran and Myanmar, increasing its oil exports and developing other forms of economic cooperation with China and Laos. Russia has thus reduced the paralyzing effect of the sanctions imposed on it and forged an alliance with authoritarian regimes. Faced with Russia’s total impunity, these regimes are becoming emboldened and stepping up repression on national territory.
FIDH and its member organizations show their solidarity with the people of Ukraine
Promoting more effective justice in Ukraine and in the rest of the world requires recognizing and dealing more firmly with the widespread Russian violations as a recurring threat to peace and security in the world.
In solidarity with the Ukrainian population, FIDH and its member organisations:
urge the Russian Federation to immediately cease its military hostilities against Ukraine, and Belarus to cease supporting these actions;
call for enhanced cooperation and complementarity between existing accountability mechanisms that investigate crimes committed in Ukraine under international law, and for more meaningful engagement with victims, survivors and civil society as a whole;
support the call for further deliberations aimed at establishing other accountability mechanisms investigating crimes committed in Ukraine under international law, such as a hybrid tribunal deliberating on the crime of aggression and other crimes committed in Ukraine under international law;
call for the relentless condemnation of all violations of international law committed in Ukraine by all parties;
call for relentless condemnation and the establishment of effective accountability mechanisms on the violations of international law committed by the Russian authorities in other situations where Russian agents commit prohibited acts of violence, notably in Syria, in Mali and the Central African Republic, thus highlighting the links between authoritarian drift and extraterritorial violations;
call on Ukraine and other non-States Parties to ratify the Rome Statute and to implement legislation allowing crimes under international law to be investigated and prosecuted on their soil; And
call on the Russian authorities to stop propaganda and the manipulation of history to justify Ukraine’s aggression in the name of “denazification”, and on the international community to make greater efforts to stem them.
