Right: An African child soldier: using children as fighters is an infringement of the United Nations Rights of the Child, as well as a war crime.
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Arguments in favour of charging President Putin with war crimes
1. Russia's actions in Ukraine and elsewhere appear to fit the definition of war crimes
Though the accusations of war crimes would have to be tested before the International Criminal Court, many commentators have alleged that Russia's recent actions in Ukraine clearly constitute war crimes. Russia has been condemned for committing actions which are 'war crimes' because they 'violate the customs and conventions of war' and which are 'crimes against humanity' because they target civilian populations.
A BBC News report by legal correspondent Dominic Casciani published on April 5, 2022, detailed many of the Russian actions condemned as 'war crimes' or 'crimes against humanity'. Investigators and journalists have found what appears to be evidence of the deliberate killing of civilians in Bucha, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, and other nearby areas. Ukrainian forces say they have found mass graves and there is evidence of civilians having been shot dead after their feet and hands were bound. In March, the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said Russia had 'destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centres, and ambulances' and that these actions amounted to 'war crimes.' Earlier that month, a Russian strike on a theatre in Mariupol appeared to be the first confirmed location of a mass killing. The word 'children' was written in giant letters outside the building. Ukraine previously called Russia's air strike on Mariupol's hospital a war crime.
On visiting Bucha after the Russian withdrawal, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky stated that what he saw there was clear evidence of war crimes. The president stated, 'It's very difficult to talk when you see what they've done here... These are war crimes, and it will be recognised by the world as genocide...You stand here today and see what happened. We know that thousands of people have been killed and tortured with extremities cut off, women raped, children killed...It's genocide.' The Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova later said that 410 civilian bodies had been recovered in the wider Kyiv region after Russian troops pulled back. In Bucha, the local mayor said 280 people were buried in mass graves because they could not be buried in cemeteries that were within firing range.
There has also been condemnation of the type of weapons being used by Russia against Ukraine. There is mounting evidence that cluster bombs - munitions that separate into lots of bomblets - have been used by Russian forces in civilian areas of Kharkiv. The UK has claimed that Russia has also used thermobaric explosives, which create a massive vacuum by sucking up oxygen. Because of their capacity to inflict indiscriminate loss of life, the deliberate use of such weapons near civilians would almost certainly break the rules of war.
Ukraine has denied Russian allegations that it has used non-combatants as human shields and that this is what accounts for Russia's attacks on civilian populations. On April 7, 2022, BBC News reported clear evidence of Russian troops rounding up Ukrainian civilians and using them as human shields has been found by the BBC. In multiple interviews in Obukhovychi, villagers say they were taken from their homes at gunpoint and held in a school by Russians trying to stop advancing Ukrainian forces. Local people also gave accounts of Russian troops shooting civilians and holding others captive in and around Ivankiv, the neighbouring town.
It is claimed that the very act of invasion is a war crime as it is an unprovoked assault against another sovereign state. Ukraine presents the Russian invasion as a war of aggression and disputes that a significant portion of its population wants to return to Russian control. On December 22, 2021, The Conversation published a report by Jacob Lassin and Emily Channell-Justice titled 'Why Putin has such a hard time accepting Ukrainian sovereignty' which explained that for four centuries Ukraine has been trying to gain independence from Russia and that when Ukrainians voted for independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, during the disintegration of the Soviet Union, all of its 24 'oblasts,' or regions - including Donetsk and Luhansk (the now-contested regions in the Donbas) and Crimea (an area since annexed by Russia) - supported independence. The large minority of ethnic Russians - 17.3 percent of the population at Ukraine's last census in 2001 - were included as Ukrainian citizens in an independent state. For the most part, they too voted for independence.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has declared that his people will resist Russian occupation. Immediately after Russia's attacks began, he stated, '"This is the sound of a new iron curtain, which has come down and is closing Russia off from the civilised world. Our national task is to make sure this curtain does not fall across our land.' 2. Putin is a dictator whose monopoly on power leaves him largely responsible for the conduct of Russia's armed forces
Critics of President Putin argue that his regime has become progressively more dictatorial and that his enormous control over the state apparatus makes him legally and practically responsible for the invasion of Ukraine and the atrocities that have been claimed to have occurred as a result.
On November 13, 2021, The Economist published an analysis and commentary on Putin's regime titled 'Vladimir Putin has shifted from autocracy to dictatorship'. The article traces the course of Putin's progression toward dictatorship. He has discredited and imprisoned his political opponents, one of whom, Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader, was poisoned in August 2020 and jailed in 2021. Mr Navalny's organisation has been crushed and declared 'extremist'. His entire team has been forced out of the country; their remaining relatives have been harassed and persecuted. The father of Ivan Zhdanov, one of Mr Navalny's right-hand men, was put on trial in October 2021. On November 9th Liliya Chanysheva, a 39-year-old politician who ran one of Mr Navalny's regional offices, was arrested on a charge of 'extremism', which carries a ten-year prison term. Thousands of potential candidates are denied the right to stand for election because of their supposed association with Mr Navalny.
The Economist claims that Putin has shown a shift from wanting to contain political threats to wanting to eliminate them. It further claims that political power has moved from civilian technocrats to militarised and often uniformed 'securocrats' who are prepared to use violence to obtain their political objectives. The Economist article notes, 'The regime has moved from being a consensual autocracy supported by co-option and propaganda to a dictatorship resting on repression and fear.' It cites a poll, conducted by the Levada Centre, which appears to demonstrate that 'the fear of repression, now shared by 52 percent of Russia's population, and of state violence (58 percent), are at all-time historic highs, affecting more respondents than the fear of losing a job, falling into poverty, or being struck by natural disaster.'
In April 2021, Vladimir Putin signed a law that will allow him to run for the presidency twice more in his lifetime, potentially keeping him in office until 2036. Presidential terms have also been lengthened to six years. This ended a year-long process to 'reset' his presidential terms by rewriting the constitution through a referendum-like process that his critics have called a crude power grab. If Putin remains in power until 2036, his tenure will surpass that of Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union for 29 years, making him the longest-serving Moscow leader since the Russian empire. After serving his first two terms in office, Putin assumed the post of prime minister in 2008 due to term limits but nonetheless remained the country's de facto leader. He returned to the presidency in 2012, provoking protests among his critics on the left and right that were put down.
In an article published in Politico on March 17, 2021, it was noted the extent to which political messaging about the war against Ukraine has become progressively more publicly focused on President Putin. The article states that initially Putin was shown each evening on state-run national television conferring with his advisers, who appeared on a bank of TV monitors in front of him, with no advisers physically present. More recently, however, they have been symbolically reduced to an even less significant position, with not a single member of Russia's National Security Council shown on the screen. Putin is now delivering the message alone.
This development suggests the extent to which the war in Ukraine is centralised on the person of and under the control of the Russian president.It has been argued that President Putin could be charged as a war criminal through the legal doctrine of command responsibility. If commanders order or even know or are able to know about crimes and did nothing to prevent them, they can be held legally responsible.
This doctrine has been used previously to make accusations against President Putin in relation to Russian and Syrian warplanes attacking civilian infrastructure in Idlib province, in Syria, without warning or a legitimate military target. Human Rights Watch, an international, non-government organisation that seeks to protect human rights, argued in 2020 that there were ten Russian and Syrian officials who under the doctrine of command responsibility knew or should have known about the abuses against civilians and failed to prevent them or punish those responsible. Human Rights Watch has stated, 'There's evidence that [these ten officials] were heavily involved in the development of the strategy, that they regularly requested updates on it and that they were provided with notice that these war crimes and violations are being committed - and apparently did nothing to stop them.' At the head of this list of officials was President Putin.
No action has yet been taken against President Putin for his actions in Syria; however, the Syrian conflict has not attracted the degree of international attention focused on Ukraine. Ukraine may prove a modern test case for the use of the doctrine of command responsibility as a means of holding political leaders to account for war crimes.On March 16, 2022, United States president, Joe Biden, accused President Putin of being 'a murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.' The day before Biden had called Putin a 'war criminal'. The United States president seemed to be implying a link between being a dictator and being held accountable for an 'immoral war'.
President Biden appeared to be making a connection between Putin's absolute power within his country and his responsibility for his country's war crimes.3. Early investigations of Russian forces' actions in Ukraine have supplied detailed confirmation of war crimes
Those calling for President Putin and Russian forces and their leaders to be charged with war crimes claim that early investigations into apparent atrocities in Ukraine confirm that war crimes have been committed.
A report from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), released on April 13, 2022, appears to confirm beyond doubt that Russian forces and their leaders currently seeking to occupy Ukraine have committed war crimes. The report tracked alleged abuses from February 24, 2022, the day Russia invaded, to April 1, 2022. It does not include a later missile strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that killed over 50 people, including children, or atrocities recently reported in Bucha, a suburb of the capital, Kyiv. The Vienna-based security body's report stated there was clear evidence that Russian forces had targeted hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and water facilities in its military operations, leading to civilian deaths and injuries.
The report concluded that the airstrike that partially demolished a maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9 was a Russian attack. The report states, 'Based upon Russian explanations, the attack must have been deliberate...No effective warning was given and no time-limit set. This attack therefore constitutes a clear violation of International Humanitarian Law and those responsible for it have committed a war crime.' The OSCE report also found that the assault on the Mariupol Drama Theater, where hundreds of civilians were sheltering as the building was attacked, 'was most likely an egregious violation of international humanitarian law and those who ordered or executed it committed a war crime.'
The OSCE report recommended that the events in Bucha, which it did not investigate, deserve 'a serious international enquiry, on the spot, with forensic experts,' and stated that 'evidence points to a major war crime and a crime against humanity committed by the Russian forces.'
Subsequent investigations have found evidence of what appears to be torture perpetrated by Russian forces against some of the citizens of Bucha. The body of one Ukrainian man was found with 'bullet holes in his calves and his arms were stretched out at strange angles between slats of wood with nails through them.' During seven days of reporting in this town, Washington Post reporters documented 208 bodies in graves or lying in the street. In scores of interviews with residents, prosecutors, police, and coroners, as well as a review of photographs, video and archived Telegram chat logs between residents, The Post documented how for nearly a month in March, Bucha's residents were subjected to systematic abuse and torture.
The interviews and evidence suggest that many murders were sadistic and premeditated. Near a glass factory in Bucha, which became a Russian base, a security guard was shot dead, then beheaded. The killers burned his head and left it out for other Ukrainians in the area to see. Close by, the body of a 2-year-old man, bore signs of torture and several gunshots, and had been booby-trapped with a tripwire to explosives intended to kill anyone who tried to collect him.
The evidence shows that Russian soldiers beheaded, burned, sexually abused, and fired upon Ukrainian civilians from the early days of the occupation of Bucha. According to those interviewed, Russian soldiers went house to house confiscating cellphones to keep residents from sharing troop locations or taking photos or videos of the Russian excesses. However, many people managed to keep devices hidden so there is a photographic record of the abuse.
On April 7, 2022, German former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum filed a 140-page criminal complaint with German prosecutors over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The week before the German weekly newspaper, Der Spiegel, reported that Germany's foreign intelligence agency has intercepted radio messages between Russian soldiers discussing the killings of civilians in Ukraine. The German former ministers have said they want to use German laws allowing prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad to bring to justice those they consider responsible for atrocities in Ukraine. Lawyer Nikolaos Gazeas, who compiled the criminal complaint on their behalf, said it targets not just Putin's Russian leadership and the 32 members of his security council, but also 'a whole series of members of the Russian military.'
4. Russia has spread deliberate misinformation about its actions in Ukraine
Those who believe that Russian forces and their leader President Putin should be charged with war crimes argue that the campaign of misinformation that Russia has spread regarding the war in Ukraine demonstrates its awareness of its own criminal actions. They claim that Russia has been conducting an elaborate propaganda campaign to disguise its own guilt and to present its opponents as the criminals. They further claim that this has been done to influence public opinion in Russia and around the world.
It has been reported that prior to the invasion of Ukraine, on February 18, 2022, Russia released recorded misinformation purporting to demonstrate that Ukraine was planning to attack the two separatist regions in the Donbas. A week before the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv came under Russian shelling, an alarming video announcement was circulating on encrypted messaging app, Telegram. The video announcement had pro-Russian separatist leaders of the self-declared Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) warning the Ukrainian military were in the process of invading the regions on the order of President Volodymyr Zelensky. The video announcements, including their recordings of supposed Ukrainian shelling, were shown to be false when analysis of their metadata revealed the videos had been produced several days before their claimed date. They were later condemned as an attempt to use falsified evidence of supposed Ukraine attacks on the Donbas to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Since the fighting has begun, Russia appears to be spreading misinformation about what is occurring in the Ukraine, including making false accusations about Ukrainian misinformation. For example, Russia has claimed that video images of pregnant women being rescued from the shelled rubble of a maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 16 were of actors whom the Ukrainians had employed to create the impression that there were patients in the hospital when it came under attack. Russia has also claimed that burnt bodies shown in the wreckage of a TV tower destroyed in Kyiv were staged and claimed that the bodies had been taken from a local morgue and used in falsified images.
Many of these Russian accusations have been actively debunked by western media outlets. After its forces withdrew from Bucha, Russia has claimed that the bodies of civilians lying dead in the streets of the town were planted by the Ukrainians. The Russian defense ministry wrote on its Telegram channel that the videos were 'a staged production and provocation.' The Russian embassy in Germany claimed that the photos and videos had been staged by the 'Kyiv regime for the Western media.' The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariya Sakharova further claimed that the United States and NATO had 'ordered' the footage so that Russia could be accused of war crimes. Research by the New York Times using satellite images that the bodies seen in the Bucha media footage on April 2 were already lying there on March 19 and, in some cases, as early as March 11. A before-and-after comparison of satellite images taken on March 19 and on April 2 shows that the bodies were in exactly the same position on the road. These images refute Russian claims that the corpses only appeared on the road after the withdrawal of Russian troops on March 30.
It has also been reported that Russia is vigorously restricting freedom of information within its own borders to shape Russians' views of what is happening in Ukraine. On March 15, 2022, NPR published a report which states, 'Russia has cracked down on free speech and placed strict propaganda controls on what citizens see and hear about the brutal war in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a rule that criminalises reporting that contradicts the Russian government's version of events. The law has forced many independent media outlets to leave the country, shut down - or face potential lengthy prison terms.' The NPR report quotes Julia Ioffe, a reporter and founding partner of the media company Puck. Ioffe states, '[Russians] are being told that Russian soldiers are extremely decorous and careful about preserving Ukrainian civilian life, that they're being greeted as liberators, that everybody wants to live under Russian rule, and that there are no civilian casualties on the Ukrainian side.'
In the days that followed Russian troops' withdrawal from Bucha, video of civilian victims in Bucha, always labeled 'fake,' were played repeatedly on Russian state television programs. A new conspiracy theory has been presented to Russian viewers: that the dead bodies were not those of actors but of local residents who had welcomed the Russian occupation and were then killed by the Ukrainian army when it regained control of the city. 5. That Russia is not alone in committing war crimes does not remove its guilt or the need to act against it
Those who maintain that Putin and others within Russia, including many Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, should be charged with war crimes argue that the fact that Russia's accusers may also be guilty of war crimes does not remove Russia's guilt. Some also maintain that Russia's attack on Ukraine is such a serious and flagrant violation of international law that it cannot be ignored. It has been argued that it is particularly important that Russia be discouraged from further acts of aggression and that China be made aware that such acts will not be accepted by the international community.
It has been claimed that the likely guilt of many of those parties making allegations against Russia and Putin does not absolve Russia (and in particular its leader) of the requirement to face criminal charges for the illegal actions they have taken. Rebecca Davis in an article published in the South African Daily Maverick on March 8, 2022, states, 'Two things can be true at the same time. Yes, the West's response to Putin reeks of selective outrage and double standards. Simultaneously, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is an unjustifiable and illegal onslaught on a sovereign state.'
It has also been argued that Russia's attack on Ukraine represents a particularly heinous assault on the principles of international law and so make it necessary that action be taken against it. On March 10, 2022, the Polar Research and Policy Initiative published a comment by Professor Rachael Johnston in which she states, 'From the international perspective, the Russian aggression and invasion of Ukraine is of a different nature. Each war is unique in its own terrible way, but the offensive against Ukraine shakes international law to the core. A State in possession of thousands of nuclear weapons and 900,000 active military troops is attacking its smaller neighbour without any possible legal justification.' Professor Johnston further explains, 'Past wars have stretched the legal norms of the use of force in the absence of Security Council authorisation. Debates continue today regarding the validity of humanitarian intervention (Kosovo 1999 and Crimea 2014) and self-defence (Afghanistan 2001 and Iraq 2003). However, in each of these cases, while there could be reasonable disagreement on the facts as to whether the threshold for the use of force was met...Furthermore, there was an expectation that the parties using military force would respect the principle of proportionality, using a minimum of force to achieve their ends, and then withdraw...
Russia's breach of the most fundamental principle of international law - the prohibition of the use of force - is so flagrant and its purported justifications so poor that it threatens not only Ukraine but the system by which our chaotic world is made a little less chaotic... It is inconceivable that Putin's advisors and legal experts consider any of their arguments credible. Instead, the invasion of Ukraine signals that Russia is thumbing its nose at international law. Today's war in Ukraine is different. This is not a war of Russia v Ukraine, Russia v NATO or even Russia v 'The West'. This is a war of Russia against the very foundations of international law.'
It has been claimed that if the world had acted against earlier instances of Russian territorial ambition and violations of international law, then the atrocities being committed in Ukraine may have been prevented. On March 16, 2022, The New Atlanticist published a comment by Gissou Nia and Jomana Qaddour titled 'Punish Putin for past and present crimes'. The authors of this opinion piece state in relation to Putin's earlier crimes, 'If he had been stopped after Grozny, would he have unleashed brutal force in Aleppo? And had the world collectively held Putin accountable for his military's abuses in Syria, would he have felt emboldened enough to bomb Ukrainian cities?'
Finally, it has been argued that if the rest of the world does not act against Russia's aggression this could encourage other leaders with territorial ambitions to behave as Russia has. There has been particular concern that Russia's invasion of Ukraine could encourage China's leader Xi Jinping to attempt to annex Taiwan. On February 24, 2022, The New Yorker published a comment by Evan Osnos in which he states, 'The more immediate risk, in the eyes of some in Taiwan and Washington, is that China will see Putin's venture as a step toward the normalizing of more aggressive pressure tactics... An ineffectual and half-hearted response by the West toward Putin's invasion couldn't but feed into Xi's existing belief that America and its allies are weakening and divided.'