Russia has committed more than 65,000 war crimes in Ukraine, prosecutor general says

WASHINGTON – Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said Wednesday that determination authorities person registered much than 65,000 Russian warfare crimes since Moscow's struggle began astir a twelvemonth ago.

"We person each witnessed with fearfulness the grounds of atrocities committed successful Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Izium, Kherson, Kharkiv regions and different liberated cities and towns," Kostin said, adding that Ukrainian authorities person discovered wide burial sites successful areas occupied by Russian troops.

"These crimes are not incidental oregon accidental, they see indiscriminate shelling of civilians, willful killing, torture, conflict-related intersexual violence, looting and forced displacement connected a monolithic scale," helium added successful remarks astatine the Georgetown Law School successful Washington.

Read more: UN study details horrifying Ukrainian accounts of rape, torture and executions by Russian troops

His comments adhd to an emerging representation of the horrors experienced during astir a twelvemonth of warfare successful Ukraine. The struggle has shown fewer signs of ending soon, adjacent arsenic section and planetary officials effort to probe imaginable crimes committed implicit caller months successful Ukraine.

In a abstracted treatment with journalists, Kostin said helium believed Kyiv was adjacent to gaining U.S. enactment to found a peculiar tribunal to prosecute Russia's crimes of aggression.

Because imaginable warfare crimes transverse a scope of jurisdictions, the International Criminal Court cannot prosecute them, oregon heads of authorities specified arsenic Russian President Vladimir Putin. A peculiar tribunal endorsed by the United Nations Security Council besides seems unlikely, since Russia holds veto authorization connected each measures enactment distant by the 15-member group.

Beth van Schaack, President Joe Biden's ambassador-at-large for planetary transgression justice, said connected Wednesday that the U.S. is considering a connection that would sanction an interim authoritative to commencement signaling grounds of imaginable crimes that could beryllium utilized later.

Kostin precocious said European countries similar France and the United Kingdom person agreed to assistance make a peculiar tribunal.

Russia has repeatedly denied that its troops person committed warfare crimes oregon deliberately targeted civilians. The Russian Embassy successful Washington did not instantly respond to a petition to comment.

Kostin outlined adjacent much of what helium described arsenic Russian abuses. He said his teams person besides documented much than 14,000 Ukrainian children forced into adoption successful Russia.

"This is simply a nonstop argumentation aimed astatine demographic alteration by cutting retired Ukrainian identity," Kostin said.

"These actions are characteristics of the transgression of genocide," helium added.

The decease toll successful Ukraine is mounting arsenic the struggle persists. As of Monday, the United Nations had confirmed astatine slightest 7,110 civilian deaths successful Ukraine since Russia's late-February invasion.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the decease toll successful Ukraine is apt higher, due to the fact that the equipped struggle tin hold fatality reports.

Kostin added that truthful far, much than 75,000 buildings, including homes, schools and hospitals, person been reduced to rubble.

Kostin besides slammed Russian attempts to weaponize the wintertime play by targeting captious vigor infrastructure crossed Ukrainian cities.

"Russia resorts to prohibited methods of warfare similar weaponizing wintertime and aiming to starve, frost and terrorize the civilian colonisation successful the full territory of Ukraine," Kostin said. He noted that astir fractional of Ukraine's vigor assemblage has been destroyed by Russian shelling.

Last twelvemonth arsenic wintertime approached the region, America's apical subject serviceman called Moscow's deliberate targeting of vigor infrastructure successful Ukraine a warfare crime.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters successful November that the Kremlin's "deliberate targeting of the civilian powerfulness grid, causing excessive collateral harm and unnecessary suffering connected the civilian population," was a warfare crime.

Read more: Pentagon says Moscow’s deliberate targeting of Ukrainian vigor grids is simply a warfare crime

Milley astatine the clip said that much than a 4th of Ukrainians are estimated to beryllium without powerfulness passim the state during winter.

Alongside Milley, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin astatine the clip described Russia's rocket and rocket attacks connected civilian infrastructure arsenic "deliberate cruelty" and called connected the Kremlin to extremity its "war of choice."