ICC warrants out for 2 Russian officers
Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov allegedly directed missile attacks at civilian targets
The International Criminal Court said Tuesday that it had issued arrest warrants for two senior Russian officers over the Ukraine war, including strikes targeting Ukrainian power infrastructure.
The court said Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, an army lieutenant general and a navy admiral, were responsible for directing missile attacks at civilian targets from at least 10 October 2022, until at least 9 March 2023, and are also accused of crimes against humanity.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe they bear individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” the Hague-based court said in a statement.
The two men either carried out the attacks directly or ordered them, or failed “to exercise proper control over the forces under their command,” it said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the court’s action, saying it sent a message to Russian commanders that “justice will be served” over strikes against civilians and critical infrastructure.
“Every perpetrator of such crimes must know that they will be held accountable,” he said.
Kobylash, 58, commands an air unit linked to Russia’s nuclear deterrence system, the country’s defense ministry says in a document on its website.
Sokolov, 61, is commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, according to his official biography.
“It took us many months of dedicated work of prosecutors, investigators of Ukraine, different Ukrainian agencies, who supplied the office of the prosecutor of the ICC with thousands of evidences and information,” Ukraine’s prosecutor general Andriy Kostin said Tuesday.
‘One Russian ship has been upgraded to a submarine.’
“Today, we reached another milestone in ensuring justice for all victims and survivors of this war. I’m really grateful for prosecutor of the ICC Karim Khan and his team,” Kostin said in Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of European justice ministers.
The ICC does not have its own police force for enforcing arrest warrants, and relies on its 123 member states to do so if the individuals targeted travel to their territory.
The move comes after the court targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin in March last year with an international arrest warrant on war crime accusations over the deportation of Ukrainian children since launching the war in February 2022.
‘Ship now a submarine’
Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces had destroyed a Russian military patrol ship in the Black Sea near annexed Crimea, the latest naval attack on Moscow’s fleet in the key waterway.
Kyiv also said it was behind a drone strike on an oil depot in a Russian border region.
Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence unit on Tuesday released a black and white video of what it said was the overnight attack on the Sergei Kotov, a 94-meter Russian military patrol ship.
The footage showed a naval drone approaching the side of the vessel, before a large explosion can be seen sending fire, smoke and debris into the sky.
“Another very successful operation. Great news,” said GUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov.
“One Russian ship has been upgraded to a submarine,” Ukraine’s defense ministry said in an ironic post on X.
In the neighboring Kursk region of Russia, authorities said an artillery strike triggered a fire at the Glushkovo railway station and cut off power to a nearby village.
On land, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Moscow’s forces were “continuing to press the enemy westwards,” seeking to build on the capture of Avdiivka last month.