Warning: References mature topics such as sexual violence and murder
Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, numerous allegations of war crimes have been brought to the attention of the Ukrainian authorities, their allies in the West, and the United Nations. In recent days, talk of future trials against the criminal actions of Vladimir Putin, his generals, and Russian troops have begun.
Although Ukrainian officials have experience investigating war crimes, they are in dire need of assistance from the U.S. and other European countries because they are not equipped to investigate claims of this nature on such a large scale and certainly not amid a full-blown armed conflict. International leaders recognize that with the situation in Ukraine, there is a real possibility that investigators will have to look into senior political and military leaders, which would entail a much more complex investigative and prosecutorial approach. It is for this reason that Ukraine’s allies in the U.S. and Europe are trying to provide Ukraine with their expert knowledge and support. When looking into war crimes, investigators ask three questions: what happened, when did it happen, and who were the victims.
The U.S. State and Justice Departments have responded to these pleas from Ukraine by helping Ukraine’s prosecutor general investigate on the ground. So far, the State Department has hired a group of outside authorities with specialized expertise in prosecuting war crimes led by Clint Williamson, a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes-related issues. Williamson’s group is gathering war crimes prosecutors, investigators, analysts and forensic experts with extensive knowledge of war crimes cases to aid Ukraine. In addition to Williamson’s group, the Western allies as a whole also hired a mobile justice team of international experts to assist investigators and prosecutors in Ukrainian warzones.
The goal of these international initiatives is to document possible Russian crimes now with the hope that in the future, perpetrators will be held accountable and some form of justice will be able to be achieved. U.S. ambassador for global criminal justice Beth Van Schaack told NPR, “It’s extremely important for the sanctity and integrity of history to document these crimes, to make sure that we have preserved and authenticated the evidence that is being generated in the various crime scenes around Ukraine. It’s also important for the sake of victims and survivors so that they know that the international community has seen what they have experienced, has called it for what it is and has ratified their very legitimate demands for justice.”
In early April, U.S. officials met with European leaders to strategize a way to gather evidence for Ukraine. It was decided that experts from the West would help Ukrainian officials with the most challenging aspect of the investigation: finding linkage evidence. This type of evidence links the crimes up the chain of command. Finding linkage evidence involves determining which military unit was in a certain place at a certain time, who the commanders at various levels were (all the way up to senior military officials and political leaders), and uncovering the nature and scale of the crimes.
It is currently unclear where these war crimes trial proceedings would occur. Van Schaak has said that there are many options and that the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has opened its own investigation into war crimes in Ukraine, is a viable option; however, holding the trials at the ICC would complicate things for the U.S. because the U.S. is not privy to the court. Nevertheless, the Biden administration has expressed support for the ICC’s plans. Additionally, domestic courts are a possible venue. Domestic Ukrainian courts would obviously have jurisdiction, but European courts with laws that allow national authorities to prosecute international crimes would most likely have jurisdiction as well. Ultimately, it is likely that the trials will occur in a combination of international and domestic courts.
These alleged war crimes include claims of systematic sexual violence committed against Ukrainians at the hands of Russian troops. Ukrainian human rights representative Lyudmyla Denisova reported that in Bucha, 25 women and girls aged 14-24 were held captive in a basement by Russian soldiers who threatened to “rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children.” Now, nine of those women are pregnant. As stated by Guardian news reporters, “The brutal message is that even if Ukrainians won’t submit to being Russian, their unborn children will have no choice.”
War correspondent Christina Lamb writes in her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefield that “rape is the cheapest weapon known to man.” Sexual violence is employed just as deliberately and strategically as explosives and weaponry and in times of war, is used to traumatize, degrade, terrify and intimidate civilians. As seen in Ukraine, mass rape is also used as a form of ethnic cleansing, as it forces women to bear the children of the invading army. The kidnap and later adoption of Ukrainian children by Russian families is another form of ethnic cleansing that has been employed by Russia.
On top of the mass sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers, there is also a sex-trafficking crisis at the borders of Ukraine and its neighbors. Many sex-traffickers disguised as good samaritans station themselves at the Ukrainian border to prey on women who are fleeing by offering the women a place to stay only to then entrap them in sex-trafficking rings. Guardian reporters stated, “Wherever there is conflict, there is chaos and disruption and unguarded moments for women and children, and with depressing predictability, some will always seek to exploit that.” Since this behavior is predictable at this point in history, the UN has already requested that the British government ban single men from housing female refugees.
The propaganda coming out of Moscow indicates that this war is not merely over territory or political interests, but that it is instead about eliminating the idea of being Ukrainian and diminishing the Ukrainian national identity into some distorted Russian fantasy of one greater Russia. The crimes being committed in Ukraine come out of a place of hatred and disregard for human life. The West has recognized the concerning ideology behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine and is prepared to hold Putin and all the other Russian perpetrators accountable.
