- Ukraine welcomed the move and said men will be “responsible for evil.”
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, and former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was recently fired by Vladimir Putin.
Arrest warrants were issued for the alleged war crimes of directing attacks against civilian objects and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians, as well as for the crime against humanity of “inhuman acts” in Ukraine, the ICC said in a statement.
The ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the two suspects are responsible for the missile attacks carried out by the Russian armed forces against Ukrainian electrical infrastructure from at least October 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023.”
The court said that these attacks were “directed against civilian objects” and even where the targets could be considered military, the civilian damage “would have been clearly excessive for the intended military advantage.”
The court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin in March last year, a sentence Moscow called “void.” In response, Russia filed its own injunction against the ICC president.
The file image shows Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, speaking with the Chief of the Russian General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov.
Firefighters work to put out a fire at an energy infrastructure facility damaged by a Russian missile attack in October 2022
Sergei Shoigu was recently fired by Vladimir Putin from his position as Russia’s defense minister.
Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff applauded the ICC’s decision to issue the arrest warrants, saying it was “an important decision.”
“Shoigu and Gerasimov have individual responsibility… (They) will be held responsible for the evil,” Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
The ICC, based in The Hague, does not have its own police force to enforce arrest warrants. It depends on the justice system of its 124 members to carry them out.
In theory, anyone under a court order is prevented from traveling to an ICC member state for fear of arrest.
Putin has traveled abroad, notably to Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, countries that are not members of the ICC.
However, he skipped a BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting in South Africa, where he was expected to carry out the order.
It comes after Shoigu was ousted in the most significant shake-up of Russia’s military command since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (pictured with Vladimir Putin).
The move appeared to be a surprising snub toward Shoigu, a close ally and friend of Putin and Russia’s longest-serving minister.
Putin replaced him with the little-known civilian economist Andrey Belousov, whom commentators have described as a “puppet.”
Many have seen his appointment as a sign that Putin intends to take a greater personal role in war tactics.
Russia renewed a campaign of airstrikes against Ukrainian energy facilities in March, which kyiv said eliminated half of its power generation capacity and forced Ukraine to introduce rolling blackouts in the capital and across the country.
Russia says energy infrastructure is a legitimate military target and denies targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.
The attacks have raised concerns about the resilience of Ukraine’s weakened power system in the cold winter months after a series of harsh winters in the war-torn country.
The kyiv School of Economics estimates that Ukraine’s energy sector has suffered direct losses worth $16.1 billion since the February 2022 Russian invasion.