Valery Gerasimov and Sergei Shoigu, the former Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense of Russia, have been issued arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the invasion of Ukraine. The ICC Preliminary Questions Chamber made this decision on Tuesday after finding reasonable grounds to believe that the suspects were responsible for directing attacks on civilian targets and causing excessive collateral damage to civilians and civilian objects, as well as for inhumane acts defined in the Rome Statute as crimes against humanity.
The ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of being responsible at a criminal level for committing these acts, ordering their practice, or failing to exercise adequate control over the forces under their command to prevent such crimes. The Court found that the suspects were responsible for missile attacks on Ukrainian electrical infrastructure and a large number of attacks on power plants and substations in various locations in Ukraine.
The Chamber also believes that these attacks were directed against civilian objects and that the suspects intentionally caused great suffering or serious injury to civilians, making them criminally responsible for crimes against humanity. Even though the content of the arrest warrants was classified as “secret” to protect witnesses, the Chamber authorized the public disclosure of the existence of the warrants and the crimes with which the suspects are charged.
These arrest warrants are not new in this context; they are just one more step taken by international institutions towards holding those responsible accountable for their actions during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.