Attorney General: Some ICC arrest warrants may be secret

This was stated by Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin in a comment to an Ukrinform correspondent in The Hague.

“We already have 121 verdicts from Ukrainian courts on war crimes committed by the Russian military in Ukraine,” Kostin said.

He pointed out that the International Criminal Court could prosecute individuals who evade the reach of Ukrainian justice.

According to him, it is very important that the ICC arrest warrants were issued against four high-ranking Russian military officers for committing not only war crimes, but also crimes against humanity. “Unfortunately, our criminal code lacks an article defining a crime against humanity. Therefore, in this situation, the ICC serves as a complementary judicial institution, that is, it reinforces our efforts,” the Prosecutor General noted.

At the same time, he stressed that 99 percent of all criminal cases for war crimes are investigated by Ukraine and the cases are tried in Ukrainian courts.

“In certain cases, we will also refer certain cases to the International Criminal Court, provided that it can investigate them. Then, if we believe that it is worth initiating certain criminal proceedings at the international level, factors such as the scale of the atrocities committed by the Russian criminal regime will be taken into account,” Kostin said.

He also pointed out that information on ICC arrest warrants is not always published because they are secret.

“In some cases they (information about the arrest warrant – ​​ed.) will be published, in other cases they may not be made public. And this could mean that another person from the Russian penal regime who can travel somewhere could be arrested in one of the countries that have joined the Rome Statute … It is possible that some of the arrest warrants will not be made public. This is an extremely significant development, since there is currently no established procedure for lifting the moratorium on arrests,” the Prosecutor General explained.

As Ukrinform reported, on March 17, 2023, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court announced that arrest warrants had been issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova in connection with the situation in Ukraine.

On March 5, 2024, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber announced the issuance of arrest warrants against Commander of Russian Long-Range Aviation Sergey Kobylash and Commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Viktor Sokolov. On June 24, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov in connection with the situation in Ukraine for alleged international crimes committed at least from October 10, 2022 to March 9, 2023.

Photo: PGO