THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — The International Criminal Court announced on Tuesday two more arrest warrants for Russians over crimes committed in Ukraine.
Lt. Gen. Sergei Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Sokolov are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for a campaign of attacks against Ukrainian power plants and substations from October 2022 until at least March 2023.
Pre-trial judges who signed off on the warrant found there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged strikes were directed against civilian objects, and for those installations that may have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time, the expected incidental civilian harm and damage would have been clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage,” the court said in a news release.
It is the first time The Hague-based court has issued an arrest warrant for attacks against electrical infrastructure.
The unsealed warrant does not list the specific attacks to protect witnesses and prevent interference in ongoing investigations.
Sokolov served as the commander of the Black Sea Fleet from 2022 until 2024. Kobylash held the position of commander of the Long-Range Aviation division of the Aerospace Force during the period covered by the warrant.
Russia has repeatedly attacked the Ukrainian energy system. A report by Human Rights Watch in December 2022 found missile and drone attacks against the energy system had left millions without heat or electricity during the winter months.
The men are accused both of attacking civilian infrastructure that should be out of bounds under international law, as well as “causing excessive incidental harm to civilians” by attacking targets that could have a dual civilian and military purpose with proper consideration.
In March 2022, the court announced arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Prosecutors have charged the pair with committing war crimes by abducting Ukrainian children with the aim of raising them as Russian.
Moscow is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which created the court in 2002. Ukraine has not signed the treaty either, but in 2013 it gave the court jurisdiction over crimes committed in the country.
It is unclear how quickly the court will move forward with a trial, or if any of the four charged will ever be sent to The Hague. The court does not have its own enforcement mechanism and Russia does not extradite its own citizens.
Ukraine has pursued a wide variety of avenues to bring those responsible for the war to justice. National courts have moved forward with charges against captured Russians and the country has brought cases at nearly every international judicial venue available.
The Netherlands convicted three men — two Russians and one Ukrainian — in absentia in 2022 over the downing of a Boeing 777 over eastern Ukraine and killing all 298 people on board the Malaysia Airlines flight. The ruling said there was an “abundance of evidence” that the passenger jet was brought down by a Buk surface-to-air missile obtained from the Russian military.
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