The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague traveled to Ukraine on Tuesday to investigate the circumstances of Russian missile strikes and drone attacks on energy installations and infrastructure. How reports Reuters, Hundreds of civilians were victims of shelling and millions of Ukrainians suffered damage to energy and water supply networks.
Russia claims the legitimacy of the strikes which must weaken the enemy. But the Ukrainian authorities describe these strikes as a means of intimidating the civilian population.
The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols oblige belligerents to distinguish between civilian objects and military objectives. International law prohibits attacks on civilian objects. In meetings with Ukrainian government officials, Karim Khan said that the motives for firing at civilian targets would have to be determined and whether the shelling of those targets was justified.
Khan spoke to a small group of reporters outside a badly damaged building in Vyshgorod, north of Kiev. At the end of November last year, a rocket hit this house, eight people died, many were injured. It is necessary to investigate whether the rocket was heading for the nearest energy facility and whether it was deviating from its path, explained Karim Khan.
“We need to know if there is an analogy between the bombing of this house and other similar bombings of residential buildings. The fact is that such cases are not isolated.
Reuters notes that the total number of reports of alleged war crimes exceeds 70,000. Most of these facts will be investigated on the territory of Ukraine by local courts, the agency reports.
The jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court includes the investigation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide on the territory of Ukraine, regardless of the warring party they committed.
