Attacks Against The Civilian Population And Civilian Objects As War Crimes Committed By Russia In Ukraine

Unpunished evil is reborn with new strength. The aggression of the Russian Federation (the RF) against Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, the occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the separate city of Sevastopol (the ARC and Sevastopol) and the RF's support for terrorist groups in eastern Ukraine and around the world have not yet been met with an adequate response from the international community. For decades, the crimes of concern to the international community perpetrated by the Russian Federation have been hushed up as part of an "appeasement" policy but the short-lived illusion of peace ultimately led to the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since World War II – a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of international crimes.

As noted by the well-known Ukrainian international law expert Oleksandr Zadorozhniy, the flagrant nature of the actions of the Russian Federation, as well as the systematic, consistent and deliberate nature of its violations of international legal norms, indicate that the country is pursuing a strategy of "transforming modern international law – «international law of cooperation» – into the «law of the strongest»".

On 24 February 2022, the Russian Federation launched armed aggression against Ukraine and unleashed a full-scale war against our country. The war of aggression that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since 2014 has already claimed the lives of not only thousands of heroic defenders of our Homeland, but also civilians, forced several million people to leave their homes, caused losses in buildings and infrastructure facilities destroyed as a result of military operations, and ruined the economy of our country, hitting primarily the most vulnerable groups of the population. Above all, however, the war described here is accompanied by massive and gross violations of fundamental human and civil rights and freedoms, as well as international humanitarian law throughout the territory of Ukraine. Noteworthy, however, the significance of armed aggression and full-scale war against Ukraine comes not only from the above elements and the direct threat to the European region, a general threat to peace, humanitarian, economic, political and social considerations; the aggression analysed here undermines the contemporary international legal order, which is based on universally recognized principles of international law, the UN Charter, the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and other international legal instruments.

There is no doubt that the use of force by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which has been taking place since 2014, violates international law and should be treated exclusively as armed aggression in the context of the resolution on the definition of aggression adopted at the 29th session of the UN General Assembly in 1974 and the 2010 Amendments to the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (the Rome Statute of the ICC, Statute of the ICC). It is clear from these instruments that aggression is the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state. The Russian Federation has committed almost all acts of aggression set out in the above instruments, waging a war of aggression against our country. As a result of the events mentioned above, since 24 February 2022, an international armed conflict has been taking place in the territory of Ukraine, to which, with a view to protecting the parties to the armed conflict, and especially the civilian population, international humanitarian law should be applied, in particular the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other Ukrainian military units are repelling the aggression of the Russian Federation and are actively involved in military operations. Both their actions and the activities of the state bodies of Ukraine are currently regulated by the Ukrainian law "On the legal regime of martial law" and other legislative and executive instruments.

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