The Russian army's Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and former defense minister Sergei Shoigu are now in the crosshairs of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
On Monday, June 24, judges issued arrest warrants for the two men on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed between October 10, 2022, and March 9, 2023, in Ukraine. Crimes perpetrated "in the context of the acts of aggression committed by Russian military forces against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine which began in 2014," said ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan in a statement.
Shortly after the ICC's decision, made public on Tuesday, June 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the announcement on X. "This decision is a clear indication that justice for Russian crimes against Ukrainians is inevitable," he wrote, adding that he is looking "forward to more arrest warrants in order to deprive Russia of its sense of impunity," which he said had "fueled Russian crimes for decades."
For its part, the official Russian news agency TASS reported that Russia's security council, of which Shoigu became secretary in May after 12 years as defense minister, has deemed the ICC's decision "insignificant."
The two arrest warrants, the contents of which have been classified as "secret" by the court "in order to protect witnesses and to safeguard the investigations," relate to the first bombing campaign targeting Ukrainian power plants. By the start of winter 2022, Russian forces had shelled several sites in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa and Mykolaiv, among others. On October 10, 2022 alone, nearly 40% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure was destroyed by Russian missiles, according to the authorities in Kyiv.
Electricity infrastructure is considered dual-use, military and civilian, and can legally be the target of attack during armed conflict. Nevertheless, the three judges found that "the civilian damage" was "clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage" and qualified the acts as war crimes. The Court's press release stated that they had examined the effect of the Russian attacks "on the safety and security of civilians, including the most vulnerable, such as the elderly, women and children."
The reason the ICC has made the existence of the arrest warrants public is that attacks on civilian infrastructure are continuing and the warrants "could contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes," the statement said.
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