UN investigators find Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine

UN-appointed investigators have concluded that the Russian authorities committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine by deliberately attacking civilians and the energy infrastructure they depend on to survive the winter.

In its latest report, published on Monday, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said attacks on power plants had intensified “once again” across the country, where temperatures fell to -21°C last winter. The three-person panel, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022, based its findings on the accounts of 255 people across nine oblasts, alongside Ukrainian authorities, doctors and NGOs.

The report's central finding is unusually blunt. Russian commanders ordering the strikes knew the heating facilities they targeted “were indispensable to the civilian population, particularly during the winter”, and Russian officials had publicly referred to plans for further attacks. The investigators concluded this amounted to the war crime of “intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects.”

The panel — Erik Møse, Pablo de Greiff and Vrinda Grover — also examined Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure in Russia and occupied areas, but said Moscow denied them access and did not respond to requests for information. Their conclusions on that side of the ledger are accordingly thinner.

Beyond the grid attacks, the commission cited “compelling evidence” that Russian authorities recruited men trafficked from 29 countries, using “deception and coercion”, and deployed them on dangerous front-line tasks. Many have been killed, gone missing or been captured, acquiring prisoner-of-war status. The report calls for all trafficked persons to be discharged from the Russian armed forces.

One caveat bears repeating: the commissioners are independent experts, not UN staff, and their findings are not a court verdict. They feed, however, into the growing dossier assembled for future prosecutions.

The report now goes to the Human Rights Council, whose members must decide whether to renew the commission's mandate when it next comes up — the decision point that will determine how long this evidentiary work continues.