International Criminal Court regarding Russian crimes in Ukraine committed after February 24, 2022

“I am heartbroken [...] it pains me to see that we have learnt so little from the Holocaust,” Benjamin Ferencz, the last living Nuremberg prosecutor, said in an interview for CNN on 15 April 2022, where he commented on Russian military aggression against Ukraine and emerging evidence of crimes committed by Russian soldiers. 

The armed attack of the Russian Federation on Ukraine, with partial occupation of individual regions of the sovereign territory of Ukraine, constitutes a crime of aggression under international law, in particular the UN General Assembly Resolution (1974) and the Statute of the International Criminal Court (hereinafter referred to as the ICC), which provides a binding definition of the crime of aggression. The aggression of the Russian Federation and the shelling of the territory of Ukraine from the air, land and sea marked the beginning of an open international armed conflict between the two states, in which international humanitarian law of armed conflicts should apply, in particular the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 relative to the protection of victims in armed conflicts. The armed attack of the Russian Federation launched on 24 February 2022 is only another stage of the armed aggression waged by this state against Ukraine to date, i.e., the stage of formally declared military operations of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

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