Russian war crimes

Russian war crimes are violations of international criminal law including war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide which the official armed and paramilitary forces of Russia have committed or been accused of committing since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as the aiding and abetting of crimes by proto-statelets or puppet statelets which are armed and financed by Russia, including the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. These have included murder, torture, terror, persecution, deportation and forced transfer, enforced disappearance, child abductions, rape, looting, unlawful confinement, starvation, inhumane acts, unlawful airstrikes and attacks against civilian objects, use of banned chemical weapons, and wanton destruction.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented Russian war crimes in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. Médecins Sans Frontières also documented war crimes in Chechnya. In 2017 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has reported that Russia used cluster and incendiary weapons in Syria, constituting the war crime of indiscriminate attacks in a civilian populated area. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, set up by the OHCHR, found Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023. On 13 April 2022, OSCE published a report finding that Russia committed war crimes in the Siege of Mariupol, while its targeted killings and enforced disappearance or abductions of civilians, including journalists and local officials, could tentatively also be crimes against humanity.

By 2009, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued 115 verdicts (including the virdict in the Baysayeva v. Russia case) in which it found the Russian government guilty of perpetrating enforced disappearances, murder, torture, and failing to properly investigate these crimes in Chechnya. In 2021, the ECHR also separately found Russia guilty of murder, torture, looting and destruction of homes in Georgia, as well as preventing the return of 20,000 displaced Georgians to their territory.

As a consequence of its involvement in the war in Ukraine, wide-scale international sanctions have been imposed on Russian officials by the governments of Western countries (twice in 2014 and twice in 2022). In 2016, Russia withdrew its signature from the International Criminal Court (ICC), when the Court began investigating Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea for violations of international law. As a result, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-11/3 officially suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council membership due to war crimes in Ukraine. Many Russian officials were found guilty by local courts for war crimes committed in both Chechnya and Ukraine. Ultimately, since 2023, the ICC indicted six Russian officials, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin, for war crimes in Ukraine.

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