UN commission fails to find evidence of Russia’s genocide in Ukraine, but does find evidence of other war crimes, ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin

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Yahoo News!, 3/16/23

Erik Møse, Chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, said during a press conference on 16 March that the Commission’s investigation into human rights violations in Ukraine has not found evidence that Russia committed genocide in Ukraine.

Source: Interfax-Ukraine, citing Møse’s statement during a UN HRC press conference

Quote from Møse: “We have not found that there has been genocide within Ukraine.”

Details: Møse said that during the investigation the Commission has noted “that there are some aspects which may raise questions with respect to that crime… [i.e., the crime of genocide – ed.] but we have not yet put in any conclusion here”.

Background: 

  • On 7 December 2022, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations endorsed a resolution recognising Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide.
  • On 8 December 2022, Canada and the Netherlands filed a joint declaration of intervention in the International Criminal Court case concerning Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation).
  • On 4 March 2023, Vsevolod Kniazev, Chairman of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, said that Ukrainian courts would soon begin to hear criminal proceedings on war crimes committed by the Russian Federation concerning the genocide of the Ukrainian People.

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However, the UN did find evidence of war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine as Democracy Now! reported:

In Geneva, the U.N.-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said Thursday Russia has committed wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine, including possible crimes against humanity. Erik Møse is chair of the commission.

Erik Møse: “The commission has concluded that the Russian authorities have committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, in addition to a wide range of war crimes, including the war crime of excessive incidental death, injury or damage, willful killings, torture, inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement, rape, as well as unlawful transfer and deportation.”

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On Friday, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin. According to a report from Euronews:

The International Criminal Court says it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine. 

The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation on similar allegations.

A Kremlin spokesperson called the arrest warrant “outrageous and unacceptable”, and labeled the ICC’s decisions as “legally void.”