Ukraine Investigating Over 30,000 War Crimes Since Russian Invasion Began, Top Prosecutor Says

Topline

Ukraine has documented 34,000 alleged cases of war crimes since Russia invaded the country in February, the country’s prosecutor general Andriy Kostin told CBS News in an interview Sunday, days after Ukrainian officials said they uncovered mass grave sites containing hundreds of bodies and signs of torture in the recently reclaimed town of Izium.

Emergency workers dig into the grave of a civilian in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine.

Key Facts

Ukraine is prioritizing prosecuting cases like those in the towns of Izium and Bucha, a Kyiv suburb where 458 bodies were found buried in mass graves in March, while also investigating cases of shelling and destruction of civil infrastructure, Kostin said.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarov, also said Sunday officials have found evidence of “war crimes of massive proportions,” including “tortures, rapes and killings,” in Izium, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region that was reclaimed from Russian forces last week.

Ukraine’s office of the prosecutor general has also opened a genocide case against Russia and is in contact with the International Criminal Court, Kostin told CBS, adding that the “highest” political and military leadership “should be prosecuted and should be punished,” echoing previous allegations by U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia’s war amounts to genocide.

The 34,000 investigations reported by Kostin mark an increase since last month, when officials said they were investigating roughly 26,000 suspected war crimes, with 15 suspects in Ukrainian custody and 135 people charged to date.

Crucial Quote

Ukraine has seen a “horrible amount of potential war crimes committed by [the] Russian aggressor,” Kostin said. “Whenever [the] Russian army comes, they turn this place into [a] new Bucha, as we see in Izium.”

Tangent

The first Russian soldier to be convicted of war crimes in Ukraine was sentenced to life in prison in May for killing a 62-year-old unarmed citizen. His sentence was later reduced to 15 years by an appeals court. Several other Russian soldiers have also been sentenced.

Key Background

Ukrainian forces retook Izium as part of a successful counteroffensive to reclaim territory that the Russian military occupied several months ago. In Izium this week, officials said more than 400 bodies were found in mass graves, just some of the 1,000 bodies discovered since Ukraine reclaimed the city. Anton Gerashchenko, an Interior Ministry advisor, warned the massacre in the city could be “even worse than the tragedy in Bucha,” where officials and reporters have uncovered evidence of torture, rape and executions. The massacre led leaders from around the world to call for an investigation into Russia’s military. Just two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the International Criminal Court launched its own investigation into possible war crimes committed in the country since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes, and President Vladimir Putin has called claims of the massacre in Bucha “fake,” while honoring the Russian military unit accused of carrying out the Bucha killings.

What We Don’t Know

If Russian leaders are charged with war crimes, it’s unclear whether they will be held accountable and what their prosecution would look like. The probe led by the ICC is expected to take a long time, and the ICC has only indicted about three dozen individuals since it was founded two decades ago. The court also does not have the authority to arrest suspects on its own, even if Putin or other officials are formally indicted on war crimes charges. Instead, it relies on its 123 members—which does not include Russia, Ukraine or the U.S.—to make arrests. Ukraine could continue to prosecute specific individuals for war crimes, but the extremely high volume of cases could prove challenging for the country’s legal system.