The International Criminal Court Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two high-ranking Russian military officers believed to be responsible for directing widespread attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure and causing excessive harm to civilians during war time, which could be considered a crime against humanity.
The indictments come just days after the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) issued a report identifying 223 incidents of damage to Ukraine’s power infrastructure, of which 66 had been verified at the time of the report’s release on Feb. 29, 2024.
The report, produced as a part of the U.S. Department of State-funded Ukraine Conflict Observatory, found that a widespread distribution of damage coupled with statements from Russia’s officials appear consistent with “a targeted effort” to cripple Ukraine’s power generation and transmission infrastructure. The majority of the reported incidents, the State Department said, were “far from the front lines of conflict, calling into question whether the strikes were directed at legitimate military objectives.”
“This report shows a widespread and systematic effort on the part of Russia’s military to harm Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” said Kaveh Khoshnood, associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and faculty director of the HRL. “These attacks have put Ukraine’s civilians at great risk during the coldest months of the year. The basic needs of civilians must still be met, even during times of war.”
In its action Tuesday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued indictments for Sergei Kobylash and Viktor Sokolov for alleged crimes committed between October 2022 and until at least March 9, 2023. At the time, Kobylash, a lieutenant-general in the Russian Armed Forces, was commander of the Long-Range Aviation of the Aerospace Force. Sokolov, an admiral in the Russian Navy, was commander of the Black Sea Fleet.
These attacks have put Ukraine’s civilians at great risk during the coldest months of the year. The basic needs of civilians must still be met, even during times of war.
Kaveh Khoshnood, Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, faculty director
“During this timeframe, there was an alleged campaign of strikes against numerous electric power plants and sub-stations, which were carried out by the Russian armed forces in multiple locations in Ukraine,” the ICC said in a statement Tuesday. The court found that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged strikes were directed against civilian objects, and for those installations that may have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time, the expected incidental civilian harm and damage would have been clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage.”
The damage timeline included in the HRL report overlaps directly with the time period mentioned in the indictments, with the report focusing on dates between Oct. 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023. It was unclear Tuesday whether the ICC considered the HRL report in deciding to issue the arrest warrants. The full content of the ICC’s warrants are “secret” and thus researchers are unable to determine whether the Yale HRL report or other materials it builds on were directly cited by the ICC.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, praised the court for its indictment of senior military officials from Russia. “Every Russian commander who orders strikes against Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure must know that justice will be served,” Zelensky’s post said. “Every perpetrator of such crimes must know that they will be held accountable.”
The HRL report was produced with support from the Ukraine Digital Verification Lab (UDVL) at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The assessment remotely evaluated incidents of conflict-related damage to power generation and transmission infrastructure by combining open-source information and geospatial data.
The geographic spread of identified incidents across 23 of 24 of Ukraine’s oblasts (the country’s administrative divisions) point to a widespread effort to cripple Ukraine’s power generation and transmission infrastructure. While attacks on energy infrastructure are not unlawful per se, the scale and scope of attacks may support claims that attacks potentially implicate international humanitarian law, the researchers said.
In addition, Russia’s officials have provided various justifications for its attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure. Several of these justifications cite the intent to retaliate and produce civilian harm in ways that potentially contravene Russia’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, the researchers said.
“This report offers the most detailed account to date of the harm that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure during its unlawful war — harm that has impacted the daily lives of civilians across Ukraine,” said Oona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, and director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges. “Its careful documentation is the critically important first step toward legal accountability.”
Located in The Hague, the Netherlands, the ICC is considered by many to be a court of ‘last resort’ for the prosecution of four serious international crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. It was established in 2002 via an international treaty called the Rome Statute. The ICC can only investigate and prosecute the crimes mentioned above in situations where states are “unable” or “unwilling” to do so themselves. The ICC does not replace national or domestic courts of law. The court consists of 18 judges who serve 9-year, non-renewable terms.
Russia is not a member of the ICC. For the arrest warrants to be served, the military leaders would need to be located outside of Russia or handed over to the court by leaders in Moscow.
Tuesday’s action marked the second time the ICC has acted against Russia shortly after the publication of an HRL report. A year ago, the court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged role in an effort to forcibly deport children from Ukraine to Russia during the war.
“As our findings outline, Russia’s destruction of power transmission and generation infrastructure show their lack of consideration of the Law of Armed Conflict.” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the HRL. “Attacks on objects such as transmission and generation infrastructure are subject to the Principles of International Humanitarian Law.”