The arrest warrant issued on Friday by the International Criminal Court against Russian President Vladimir Putin is just one element in a complex web of international and national legal actions regarding alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Reuters writes.

According to the General Prosecutor’s Office in Kyiv, more than 74,500 such crimes have been registered in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. Bringing them to justice is not an easy task.

Ukrainian and Western authorities claim there is evidence of murders and executions, bombing of civilian infrastructure, forced deportation, child abduction, torture, sexual abuse and illegal detention.

But Russia has repeatedly denied that its troops committed atrocities or attacked civilians.

The successful prosecution of war criminals requires a high standard of proof in a situation where access to suspects and crime scenes is often limited and the jurisdiction of national and international courts overlap.

The role of the International Criminal Court

The Hague Tribunal has conducted the most high-profile investigations of the most notorious suspects, looking at both war crimes and wider crimes against humanity and genocide.

Since the beginning of the investigation a year ago, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has visited Ukraine four times.

He visited Kyiv Oblast, where civilians were killed in Buch, and Kharkiv Oblast, where the residential quarters of the city of Borodyanka destroyed by bombing are located, as well as an orphanage in southern Ukraine.

It is difficult to condemn / The first step

The arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, theoretically mark the first step toward a possible trial, although under current conditions the detention and indictment of the Russian president is almost unthinkable.

Even if this were to happen, previous ICC cases have shown that it is difficult to convict high-ranking officials. In more than 20 years, the court has handed down only five convictions for committing the death penalty, and none of them was against a high-ranking official.

But the ICC’s investigation of international figures is not the only option. War crimes can also be prosecuted in Ukraine’s own courts, as well as in a growing number of countries that conduct their own investigations.

There are also plans to create a new court to prosecute the Russian invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” as a crime of aggression. The ICC cannot make such a charge due to legal restrictions.

Who investigates war crimes on the ground?

Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors work with mobile justice teams with the support of international legal experts and expert groups.

They are investigating alleged violations of international law since the invasion began on February 24, 2022, mainly in the south and east, where territory was retaken from Russian forces.

Domestic courts focus on “direct perpetrator” crimes, and according to Ukrainian prosecutors, at least 26 war crimes suspects have been tried and convicted for rape and murder, bombings of residential buildings, ill-treatment and robbery.

But efforts to hold Russian leaders and commanders accountable for actions at their behest are likely to take years.

“The most difficult task is to try to build complex cases to establish accountability of individuals in the senior political and military leadership is a task that remains to be done,” said Wayne Jordash, head of the mobile justice teams deployed to support the investigations in Ukraine. .

However, the evidence is piling up.

“What is clear from prosecutorial investigations over the past year is that there is a criminal plan and that the Russian military operation is inherently criminal in the sense that you cannot seek to destroy Ukrainian identity without committing massive war crimes and crimes against humanity and… maybe genocide,” said Jordash.

What other ways are available?

The European Union recently announced the creation of an international center for the criminal investigation of aggression in Ukraine, which is subordinate to the European criminal investigation body Eurojust, also in The Hague. It could eventually become the basis for a new trial.

War crimes can be defined under customary international law or national law. Definitions of war crimes in Ukraine are narrower than, for example, the ICC.

A number of states, mostly European, have universal jurisdiction laws that would also allow them to prosecute Ukrainian war criminals.

The ICC has joined a joint investigative team with Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine itself to support possible trials in Ukraine or abroad.

In addition, the UN’s independent international commission of inquiry for Ukraine collects and documents violations of international humanitarian law in order to use the evidence collected and provided to Eurojust. It can also confirm accepted cases.