Russian war criminals could be jailed in Britain as Dominic Raab pledges support to ICC

Russian commanders found guilty of committing war crimes in Ukraine could be jailed in Britain, Dominic Raab has warned.

The Deputy Prime Minister said commanders on the ground, as well as those in the Kremlin, who are carrying out war crimes ‘must know that they cannot act with impunity’. 

Mr Raab, speaking outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, said Britain will provide support in bringing Russian war criminals – including Russian President Vladimir Putin – to justice.

He said that for those Russian commanders found guilty of war crimes, they would not only find themselves in court in the Hague, but also ‘in a prison cell’.

Mr Raab also referenced the cases of war criminals Radovan Karadzic and former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who are serving their sentences in British prisons. 

‘Russian commanders carrying out war crimes should know they cannot act with impunity. Like Radovan Karadzic and Charles Taylor before them, their actions risk landing them in a jail cell,’ Mr Raab said.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic was convicted of genocide in Bosnia at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2016, whilst Taylor was convicted in 2013 of abetting war crimes including rape and mutilation in Sierra Leone. 

Mr Raab said Britain backed the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine ‘to the hilt’. 

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said he had opened a formal investigation into possible atrocities on Ukrainian soil since 2014, when Moscow-based separatists seized part of the country’s far east.  

The ICC investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. Such crimes include genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

Putin’s forces have been accused of committing war crimes after Ukrainian cities were indiscriminately shelled, leaving thousands of civilians dead and many more wounded.

Kyiv, its Western allies, and the UN has said there is a mounting body of evidence that Putin’s forces are committing crimes, including attacking civilians with ‘missiles, heavy artillery shells, rockets, and air strikes.’  

‘It is important to get the deterrent message out to commanders on the ground in Ukraine and in Moscow that if they commit war crimes they could end up not just in the dock of a court in The Hague but in a prison cell,’ Raab told journalists in The Hague on Monday after meeting Khan.    

‘The commanders on the ground – those who may be receiving illegal orders as well as those in the Kremlin – need to know that [they will be held to account],’ he said.

Mr Raab added that for this to be a credible message, Britain and other countries needed to offer the ICC ‘extra support’ to fulfil its mandate in Ukraine. He did not give specifics. 

The Deputy PM also said Britain would provide a package of financial and technical support to the ICC to investigate the potential war crimes in Ukraine. 

The government is also offering police and military analysis and specialist IT help to collect and preserve evidence for the ICC, as well as legal expertise.

When he announced the investigation, Khan said his office was scrambling for resources and needed everything from investigators to forensic language experts and psycho-social support.

Mr Raab added: ‘Right now there is a big emphasis on preservation of evidence of war crimes that may or may not have happened in the various different reports that we have seen but also in what is going to be coming down the line as Putin responds in ever more barbaric ways to the situation, stuttering and stumbling, that he has been driving on the ground in terms of his own military campaign.’  

Poland’s foreign minister today accused Russia of ‘state terrorism’ for targeting civilians, schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure ‘in an attempt to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people.’

Zbigniew Rau told the U.N. Security Council that Russia’s ‘unprovoked, unjustified and premeditated aggression’ against Ukraine was ‘poorly prepared and executed (and) turned out to be a strategic and tactical failure.’ 

‘But instead of preventing further unnecessary deaths in its own ranks, the Kremlin changed its tactics,’ he said. 

‘The invading force started to target the civilian population and infrastructure’ in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law to try to break the Ukrainian resistance.

The ICC launched their investigation into alleged Russian war crimes after the UK and 37 other countries have referred Russia to the International Criminal Court over its devastating and illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the referral was the largest in the court’s history.

The countries include all EU member states, as well as Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and several Latin American countries. 

Mr Raab also declined to say whether the resources to be offered by Britain would be earmarked solely for Ukraine or whether they could also be used for some of the ICC’s 16 ongoing investigations and trials.

He rejected any suggestion that such financial support for a specific investigation could unbalance the court’s caseload.

‘There are rules and provisions in place to avoid any perception of bias. The court is totally independent,’ he said. 

Meanwhile the EU’s foreign policy chief says the 27-country bloc is finalizing its new round of sanctions against Russia for its ‘barbaric’ invasion of Ukraine.

Josep Borrell said Monday that the fourth package of coercive measures would target Russia’s market access, membership in international financial institutions, and steel and energy sectors.

On Monday, a Russian air strike on the capital Kyiv killed at least two people and wounded others as it blew up and set light to an apartment building.

A town councilor for Brovary, east of Kyiv, was also killed in fighting there as shells fell on the towns of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel.

Ukrainian officials said two more people died and seven were injured after Russian forces struck an airplane factory in Kyiv, sparking a large fire.

Airstrikes also hit residential buildings near the important southern city of Mykolaiv, as well as in the eastern city of Kharkiv.