Crimes against humanity

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24,2022 with the goal to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”. His declared aim was to protect people subjected to what he called eight years of bullying and genocide by Ukraine’s government. Another objective was soon added: ensuring Ukraine’s neutral status since it wanted to be part of NATO. The Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, with around 7.2 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced. However, Putin’s Ukraine war turned out to be anything but de-Nazification or what he claimed, liberation of Ukrainians from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ‘Nazi rule’. Instead, the Russian invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 , turned out to be nothing short of a war crime and a genocide against Ukrainian civilians. Russian forces carried out deliberate attacks against civilian targets and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas. The Russian forces were indiscriminate in bombarding civilian targets with long range missiles as well as banned cluster bombs. As a result of the constant bombardment on civilian populated towns and cities, Russian forces reduced civilian dwellings into rubble. The invading Russian forces did not spare homes, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, nuclear power plants, historic buildings, and churches. It was more than a total war. It was a war that is even being described as worst than the Nazi tyranny during World War II. The evidence of Russian war crimes has been documented by international organisations. In the town of Bucha, mounting evidence later emerged of a massacre perpetrated by Russian troops, including torture, mutilation, rape, looting and the deliberate killings of civilians. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (OHCHR) later documented the unlawful killing of at least 50 civilians – mostly men, but also women and children – in Bucha. More than 1,200 bodies of civilians were found in the Kyiv region after Russian forces withdrew, some of them summarily executed. There were reports of forced deportations of thousands of civilians, including children, to Russia, mainly from Russian-occupied Mariupol, as well as sexual violence, including cases of rape, sexual assault and gang rape and deliberate killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces. There are also mounting evidence of how the Russian secret service, known as Federal Security Service (FSB), are involved in the most brutal and inhuman torture of Ukrainians. Clearly, the man at the centre of the storm is none other than Vladimir Putin whose plans to depose Zelenskyy and restore a pro-Russian government in Ukraine within days has failed as the doughty Ukrainians have not only held on but presently driving out the Russian invaders in the war that has dragged on for over 7 months. Any violation of the Geneva Convention and Geneva Protocol is a war crime that merits prosecution and trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, which can result in imprisonment for perpetrators. The United States had already formally accused Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine, and a number of national and international organizations such as the European Union and UNHRC have opened investigations, collecting evidence to build cases. The Ukraine war is a blot on humanity and it is but the duty of the international community to bring to book those responsible for the crimes.