Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said on Friday he believed Russia should be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, for the attacks that began this week.
Kuleba described the actions of Vladimir Putin’s government as violations of the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the court responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of crimes against humanity.
The diplomat cited in his social networks attacks on a primary school and an orphanage attributed to Russia and that would have taken place this Friday. The Ukrainian Attorney General’s Office would be collecting evidence to take to The Hague, he added.
Also on Friday, Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko accused Russian troops of opening fire on ambulances in the region of the cities of Chernihiv and Zaporijchia, 514 km from the capital Kiev.
The minister also told Ukrainian media that Russian military forces fired on a psychiatric hospital in Chernihiv, a city that was targeted by rocket launchers last Thursday (24), when Russian President Vladimir Putin began the offensive against the neighboring country.
In the face of the offensive, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan expressed concern about the Russian invasion and said the court could investigate possible war crimes in Ukraine.
“I have been following the recent developments in and around Ukraine closely with growing concern,” Khan said. “I remind all sides conducting hostilities on the territory of Ukraine that my cabinet can exercise its jurisdiction and investigate any act of genocide, crime against humanity or war crime.”
Under international regulation, war crimes include intentional murder and destruction of property “not justified by military necessity and carried out in an illegal and arbitrary manner”. The law has been applied differently to leaders or countries that initiated aggression for reasons considered unjustified.
In addition to classifying Russian actions as war crimes, Chancellor Kuleba said the country was planning an operation to accuse Ukraine of committing what would be inhumane actions. He cited investigations by his country’s intelligence sector.
“Do not trust fakes. Ukraine defends its land in a just war. Unlike Russia, we do not target kindergartens and civilians,” the chancellor wrote.
Kuleba also called for Russia to be excluded from Swift, the interbank messaging network that is the backbone of international finance.
Russia’s military actions in Ukraine have drawn comparisons of President Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). The Ukraine government’s official Twitter account published an illustration showing the dictator supporting the Russian politician. The image went viral on social media.
In Brazil, vice-president Hamilton Mourão compared, on Thursday (24), Putin’s actions to Nazism.
“There has to be use of force, really support for Ukraine, more than what is being put on. This is my vision. If the western world simply lets Ukraine fall to the ground, then Moldova will be next. the Baltic States and so on. Just like Hitler Germany did in the late 1930s”, declared the deputy.
A video showing an allegedly Russian tank running over a civilian’s car on a street outside Kiev also went viral on social media. The vehicle was destroyed, and the occupant would have been trapped in the wreckage.
Since the beginning of the attacks, representatives of member countries of NATO (military alliance) have been harshly criticizing the Russian advances. The organization’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the attacks on Ukraine were reckless and risked “countless innocent lives”.
US President Joe Biden has said Putin is the aggressor who chose war. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was shocked by Putin’s “horrific” decision to follow “a path of bloodshed and destruction”.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian invasion had caused, as of Thursday night, 137 deaths, including 10 officers, and 316 wounded. In a televised speech, the Ukrainian leader said that “the enemy has marked him” as his number one target and that his family would be his number two target. The capital Kiev is under siege on Friday afternoon (25) and Russia demands the surrender of the Ukrainian government.
