Ukrainian courts hand down verdicts against 126 Russian war criminals

Ukraine's Prosecutor General, Andriy Kostin, stated this at the Ukraine 2024. Independence forum on August 27.

“We are bringing cases to Ukrainian courts, and 126 Russian war criminals have already been convicted. We are not just prosecuting lower-level soldiers, we are also targeting those with command responsibility. Over 100 officers of the Russian army, including generals, have been prosecuted in various cases,” Kostin emphasized.

He also noted that Ukrainian law enforcement has identified 660 suspects in war crimes against Ukrainian citizens. He explained that their efforts go beyond just identifying suspects - they are also focused on collecting strong evidence.

The Prosecutor General emphasized, “Ukraine is the first state since World War II to call for international prosecution for the crime of aggression before the global community. This crime is a major international war crime. If the crime of aggression had not been committed, there wouldn’t be 136,000 war crimes against Ukrainians. And this number is still incomplete because we don’t yet control parts of the temporarily occupied territories. Without this crime of aggression, there would be no war victims,” he added.

• On July 29, Yurii Belousov, Head of the War Crimes Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, announced that since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, Russian forces have committed 133,000 war crimes of all types listed in the Rome Statute in Ukraine.