Tribunal for Putin

The ICC should recognise Russian war crimes as genocide of the Ukrainian people

The "Tribunal for Putin" initiative has sent to the ICC evidence of multiple war crimes committed by Russian troops in Mariupol during the fighting for the city last spring. In the first days of the war, Mariupol was laid under siege, on 2nd March communication was lost in the city, and hundreds of thousands of defenceless citizens became victims of the atrocities of Russian soldiers. Specifically, there is information about torture, the shooting of civilians, their forced deportation to the Russian Federation, and the carpet bombing of entire city neighbourhoods, resulting in thousands of civilians being buried alive under the rubble of multi-storey buildings. Children were separated from their parents and transported to Russian orphanages, and adult residents of Mariupol were taken to filtration camps on the territory of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, where they were subsequently subjected to harsh interrogation. More than 25,000 civilians of Mariupol could have become victims of Russian war crimes - this nightmarish figure demonstrates clearly than any words the evil malevolence of Putin's Russia.

According to the director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Yevhen Zakharov, evidence of Russian war crimes began to accumulate as early as last spring, during the most tragic days for Ukraine. At that time, the greatest military tragedy since the end of the Second World War was played out in Mariupol. Once a flourishing port city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, the city was methodically destroyed by Russian artillery and aircraft. It became the epitome of Putin's surreal nightmare: a city without communications, electricity or heat. In between bombardments, people came out of their basements hoping to find something to eat. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed by Russian high-explosive bombs. These horrors became known thanks to the residents of the city who were lucky enough to escape the nightmare created by the Russians.

The war crimes committed by Russian troops in Mariupol should be recognised as the callous genocide of Ukrainians on ethnic grounds. Torture, shootings, destruction of housing and industrial infrastructure, separation of children from their parents and their subsequent deportation to the Russian Federation - this is the algorithm of genocide and erasure of the identity of Ukrainians taking place in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. Genocide that is taking place now in a country bordering the EU. Ukraine should get everything it needs to defeat Russia, which will have to reparations for decades for the damage caused by the war.