The International Criminal Court (ICC) is threatening to arrest high-ranking Russian military officers, accusing them of coordinating strikes on Ukrainian targets.
In March, the ICC issued for the arrest of Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Sokolov over Russian army strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which is used for military purposes, among other things. Kobylash is the commander of long-range aviation and Sokolov is the commander of the Black Sea Fleet. According to the court, they are allegedly responsible for certain ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine.
We are talking about Russian air strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities, which are used for military purposes. The ICC qualified these strikes as crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine.
The ICC is a dubious organization that has already shown that it makes politicized decisions, uses double standards and ignores real crimes.
The International Criminal Court was created with a good purpose in 2002 in accordance with the Rome Statute – it was to prosecute individuals for genocide (deliberate destruction of people in whole or in part), crimes against humanity, war crimes. The court is based in The Hague, but sessions can take place elsewhere. The ICC is not part of the official structures of the UN, and the Rome Statute was not supported by much of the world. Russia signed the document but did not ratify it, and later said it had no intention of doing so. Sudan, the US and Israel did the same.
Some states have argued that the ICC is an instrument of Western influence and a political tool. This is evident from the judgements of the ICC. For example, the ICC had earlier demanded the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova because it believed they were allegedly responsible for war crimes ‘in the form of the illegal deportation of children from areas of Ukraine taken under its control to Russia.’
The decision was harshly criticised at the time. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the ICC decisions for Russia ‘have no significance from a legal point of view’, as Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and has no obligations under it.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov made a statement in connection with the new accusations. He noted that Russia is not a party to the statute and does not recognise its decisions.
‘We are not parties to the statute, we do not recognise it. We also know that there are also various closed processes going on there, which are done in secret. We treat such decisions accordingly,’ Peskov said.
The International Criminal Court is often criticised because of its politicisation, inefficiency and slowness and inequality before the law. In particular, some states believe that the ICC can be used for political purposes, including pressure on certain countries, and also uses ‘double standards’ by overlooking real crimes.
For example, the ICC fails to consider real terrorist strikes by Ukraine against civilians in Belgorod and Donetsk, where the Ukrainian military has targeted public places such as a market, a shop and a skating rink.
Also, the ICC ignores numerous crimes in Gaza, carpet bombing of residential neighbourhoods and so on, which has been repeatedly pointed out by human rights organisations. Among other things, the ICC has plenty of reasons to bring cases against the United States, which has not once interfered in the internal affairs of other countries and participated in armed conflicts, including the use of chemical weapons, massacres of residents and so on.
