How Could Russia’s Putin Be Prosecuted for War Crimes in Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2022. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2022. (Reuters)
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How Could Russia’s Putin Be Prosecuted for War Crimes in Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2022. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2022. (Reuters)

US President Joe Biden has publicly called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal, but legal experts said a prosecution of Putin or other Russian leaders would face high hurdles and could take years, as outlined below:

How is a war crime defined?

The International Criminal Court in The Hague defines war crimes as "grave breaches" of the post-World War Two Geneva Conventions, agreements which lay out the international humanitarian laws to be followed in war time. Breaches include deliberately targeting civilians and attacking legitimate military targets where civilian casualties would be "excessive," legal experts said.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russian forces of targeting civilians indiscriminately. Russia, which describes its invasion of on Ukraine as a "special operation," denies targeting civilians and says its goal is to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine, claims Kyiv and the West say are baseless.

The USSR ratified the Geneva Convention in 1954. Russia in 2019 revoked its recognition of one of the protocols, but remains a signatory to the rest of the agreements. The ICC, formed in 2002, is distinct from the International Court of Justice, a United Nations body that hears disputes between states.

How might a case proceed?

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said this month he had opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine is a member of the ICC and Moscow does not recognize the tribunal. But Ukraine has given its approval to examine alleged atrocities on its territory dating back to Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Russia may decide not to cooperate with the ICC and any trial would be delayed until a defendant is arrested.

"It's not going to stop the international court from pursuing its prosecution and issuing its arrest warrants," said American University law professor Rebecca Hamilton.

What is the standard of proof?

The ICC will issue an arrest warrant if prosecutors can show "reasonable grounds to believe" war crimes were committed. To obtain a conviction, the prosecutor would have to prove a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, experts said.

For most charges, that requires proving intent. One way to do this would be for a prosecutor to show there were no military targets in the area of an attack and that it was not an accident.

"If it keeps happening again and again and the strategy appears to be to target civilians in urban areas, then that can be very powerful evidence of an intent to do so," said Alex Whiting, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

Who could be charged?

A war crimes investigation may focus on soldiers, commanders and heads of state, experts said.

A prosecutor could present evidence that Putin or another state leader committed a war crime by directly ordering an illegal attack or knew crimes were being committed and failed to prevent them.

Astrid Reisinger Coracini, lecturer at the University of Vienna Department of International Law, said the ICC team faces a challenge presenting evidence to link crimes on the ground to orders from leaders higher up.

"And the higher it goes, the more difficult it becomes," she said.

What makes a war crime conviction difficult?

Legal experts said the bombings in Mariupol of a maternity hospital and a theater marked as sheltering children, appear to fall under the definition of war crimes. But securing a conviction can be difficult.

In addition to the challenges they face proving intent in many cases and linking leaders directly to specific attacks, prosecutors can have a tough time obtaining evidence, including testimony from witnesses who might be intimidated or otherwise reluctant to speak out.

In the case of Ukraine, ICC prosecutors will comb through publicly available video and photographic evidence.

"It's not a fast process by any means. The fact that things are moving already is a really strong sign," Hamilton said.

Bringing defendants to trial can also be difficult. Moscow is almost certain to refuse to comply with arrest warrants. The ICC will have to track potential defendants to see if they travel to countries where they can be arrested.

Are there any precedents?

Since the ICC was formed, it has overseen 30 cases, some with multiple defendants, its website asserts. ICC judges have convicted five people of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and acquitted four others. Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was convicted in 2012.

The court has issued arrest warrants for several defendants who remain at large, including Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army militia group in Uganda.

The United Nations in 1993 created the separate International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to examine alleged crimes that took place during the Balkan Wars. That court, which shuttered in 2017, issued 161 indictments and sentenced 90 individuals.

Liberia's former president Charles Taylor was convicted by an ad-hoc UN court.

Legal experts have raised the possibility of creating a separate tribunal to examine potential war crimes in Ukraine, which could be done through the United Nations or a treaty.



Homes Smashed, Help Slashed: No Respite for Returning Syrians

People walk along a street, on the day US President Donald Trump announces that he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria, in Latakia, Syria May 14, 2025. REUTERS/Karam Al-Masri
People walk along a street, on the day US President Donald Trump announces that he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria, in Latakia, Syria May 14, 2025. REUTERS/Karam Al-Masri
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Homes Smashed, Help Slashed: No Respite for Returning Syrians

People walk along a street, on the day US President Donald Trump announces that he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria, in Latakia, Syria May 14, 2025. REUTERS/Karam Al-Masri
People walk along a street, on the day US President Donald Trump announces that he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria, in Latakia, Syria May 14, 2025. REUTERS/Karam Al-Masri

Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts.

The community center, funded by the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions.

"We have no stability. We are scared and we need support," said Fatima al-Abbiad, a mother of four. "There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income."

But the center's future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to halt foreign aid.

The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide - from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions - just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar al-Assad last year.

UNHCR's representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a "disaster" and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees.

"I think that we have been forced - here I use very deliberately the word forced - to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked," he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus.

"It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return."

BIG LOSS

A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42% of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers.

The UNHCR will also cut 30% of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20% unless it finds new funding.
Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR.

Already the center's educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas.

Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been "lucky" to receive support for her autistic child at the center.

"They taught me how to deal with him," said the mother of five.

Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011.

"(The center) made me feel like I am part of society," said the 68-year-old.

Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: "If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do," she said.

UNHCR HELP 'SELECTIVE'

Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump's seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets.

But the new blows come at a particularly bad time.

Since former president Assad was ousted by opposition factions last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates.

Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011.

"We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so," Llosa said. "That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive."

ESSENTIAL SUPPORT

Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024.

After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed - no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity.

He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother.

While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut.

"Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off," he said.

"But I can't pay back the debt," he said, fearing the worst. "I'll have to sell everything."