Cases of the alleged execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) fall under the mandate of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the court is entitled to try such cases, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has said.
"Each of the provisions of the Rome Statute [the founding treaty of the ICC]...can be applied, they all matter. Our duty is to apply a methodological approach and put together an investigation strategy," Khan told a roundtable in The Hague attended by journalists from Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
According to the latest data published by the Ukraine's Prosecutor-General's Office, investigators have so far obtained information on the execution of 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian military, 80 percent of which were recorded this year.
The trend, Ukrainian authorities say, began to be observed from November 2023, when "there were changes for the worse" in the attitude of Russian troops toward Ukrainian POWs.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine presented a report in March about the execution of at least 32 Ukrainian POWs in 12 separate cases between December 2023 and February, which was significantly higher than in any other previous period.
In March 2023, the ICC's pretrial chamber issued warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights, charging them with the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia -- a war crime under international legislation.
"The message should be clear, regardless of whether someone is a head of state, government, commander, or soldier. As the UN secretary-general has said, even wars have rules, and no one has the right to execute a civilian or a prisoner of war," Khan said.
"And if such a person acts with impunity, then it will fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC, because we have jurisdiction over the events in Ukraine," he added.
