The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Tuesday it had issued arrest warrants for Russia's top army chief and former defense minister for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure amounting to alleged war crimes.
The ICC orders are the latest in a series of actions by the court over the Ukraine war, including an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The arrest warrants, issued on Monday but made public on Tuesday, concern Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The two men are charged with war crimes of directing attacks against civilian targets and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians, as well as the crime against humanity of “inhuman acts” in Ukraine, the ICC said in a statement.
The ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the two suspects are responsible for the missile attacks carried out by the Russian armed forces against Ukrainian electrical infrastructure from at least October 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023.”
The court said that these attacks were “directed against civilian objects” and even where the targets could be considered military, the civilian damage “would have been clearly excessive for the intended military advantage.”
Ukraine praised the “important” decision, with presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak saying: “Everyone will be held accountable for wrongdoing.”
The ICC, based in The Hague, does not have its own police force to enforce arrest warrants. It depends on the justice systems of its 124 members to carry them out.
In theory, anyone under a court order is prevented from traveling to an ICC member state for fear of arrest.
Putin himself has traveled abroad, notably to Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are not ICC member states.
However, he skipped a BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting in South Africa, where he was expected to carry out the order.
'Historical first'
Moscow lashed out at the order against Putin, calling it “null” and, in response, issued its own order against the ICC president.
Putin replaced Shoigu as defense minister last month in a major shakeup of Russia's military leadership, more than two years into its offensive in Ukraine.
The 68-year-old was appointed Russian defense minister in 2012 and has had a decades-long political career of unrivaled longevity in post-Soviet Russia.
He was appointed new secretary of the Security Council, replacing his former ally Nikolai Patrushev.
The Kremlin also said that “no changes” are planned to replace Gerasimov as Chief of the General Staff.
Along with Shoigu, Gerasimov had been targeted by a hardcore group of influential pro-offensive military bloggers over Moscow's alleged military failures.
Observers believe he was closely involved in crafting the plan to send troops to Ukraine under conditions of absolute secrecy.
After taking office in 2012, Gerasimov has been the longest-serving chief of the General Staff of the post-Soviet era.
The ICC, created in 2002 to investigate war crimes around the world, opened a field office in kyiv in September as part of efforts to hold Russian forces accountable for possible war crimes.
That move came after an international office to investigate Russia for the war crime of aggression opened in The Hague in March 2023, in what kyiv called a “historic” first step toward a tribunal for Moscow's leadership. .
Along with Putin, the ICC also issued an order against Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's presidential commissioner for children's rights, on similar charges of illegal deportations of children during the Ukraine war.
In March of this year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for two senior Russian officials, Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, for attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
