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Tag: ICC

  • Israel probably missed chance to flip narrative at ICC, but still has chance at ICJ

    The volatile mix of politics and law is always a piece of international court cases, but when cases are on the fence, the impact of that mix looms larger.

    This past April, Israel had a rare legal win at the International Criminal Court Appeals Chamber. It was one of those unique moments when Israeli lawyers could stand a bit taller and argue that trying to plead the Jewish state’s legal defense is worthwhile and not futile.

    And if the IDF would bother to make its case regarding the Israel-Hamas War, Israel had a serious case to defend its military actions in many areas.

    Also, if Israel had not allowed the food security situation in Gaza to deteriorate to a dangerously precarious point – and maintained the humanitarian aid levels from during the January-March ceasefire months – it would have continued to have taken away the ability to make “starvation” claims, which had mostly gone quiet for a period of months.

    Finally, if the IDF had learned its lesson from some dozens of incidents where it mistakenly killed aid workers or journalists in sensitive areas such as hospitals, then with Hamas’s 24 battalions defeated already in the summer of 2024, it did not need to risk attacking such targets anymore. Rather, it could have avoided new high-profile tragic incidents, which lend fuel to the fire and makes judges worry that if they give Israel a pass, there will be more alleged war crimes or large-scale mistaken deaths incidents.

    THE ARREST warrants, which the ICC issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, are ridiculous, absurd and baseless, the writer asserts. (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

    But Israel did the opposite of the smart move in all three of these major issues just as it entered a period of months when the ICC lower court would need to decide whether it could stick to its original guns of endorsing criminal probes and arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, or retreat from going after Israel after the ICC Appeals Chamber warned it had jumped the gun.

    The reason the question was up in the air was that the ICC Appeals Chamber did not end the case against Israel; it only said the ICC lower court had rushed too much without fully analyzing and weighing all of Israel’s defenses.

    That makes Israel’s case a case that is on the fence.

    The volatile mix of politics and law is always a piece of international court cases. But when cases are on the fence, the impact of that mix looms larger.

    Since August 2024, the IDF has failed to release a single major update on its more than 90 criminal probes of its own soldiers, hundreds of disciplinary probes, and more than 1,000 preliminary probes relating to fighting in Gaza.

    The Jerusalem Post has reported exclusively on several rounds of when an update almost came out dating back to this past January but has been repeatedly delayed.

    IDF legal source says delay due to complexity, length of war

    Although IDF legal sources tell the Post that the delay is entirely because of the complexity and length of the war, in fact, they could have issued a partial update on 20 or even 10 high-profile cases a year ago or certainly six months ago (since they were on the verge of doing so).

    IDF legal sources deny that they have delayed over concerns of being attacked domestically within Israel by hard-right coalition members who tend to be against almost any probes of IDF war conduct.

    So, those sources may have the pressure so baked into their action that they may not fully realize how much slower and reactive they have become to problematic cases.

    Or they have lost faith in the chances of Israel before the ICC despite the win in April – in which case there is no rush.

    Or some other IDF sources have told the Post that so much of Gaza has been destroyed, and so many Gazans killed, that it is simply becoming impossible for the IDF to come to clear-eyed answers on many of the cases, though it did in other smaller wars.

    If this last point is true, then it becomes even more problematic every time the IDF decides to slow-walk probing any new incidents.

    Either taking longer helps get to the heart of a case or it doesn’t – in which case, the cases should be decided much faster than in the past.

    It is also possible that IDF Military Advocate-General Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi is waiting as long as she can to issue certain controversial decisions, so that if the political class jump on her, she will be close to the end of her term anyway.

    Next week she will finish the fourth year of her term; officially, her role is supposed to run for five years.

    Many IDF senior lawyers and advocates-general have held some of their most controversial decisions for the end of their terms.

    All of this is before getting to the “starvation” food insecurity issue.

    From March to May, Israel blocked new food supplies into Gaza. Israel’s claim that Gaza had enough food at the time was clearly true, because there was no mass starvation during those months.

    Those months eroded most of Gaza’s food inventory, however, which meant that if new food supplies in May or June came a day late due to a logistical delay at the border crossings or a military delay with attacks happening along the food delivery route, some Gazans suddenly were actually in a state of food security danger.

    It was exactly because of this that one month ago, Israel suddenly completely reversed its policy of only allowing selective UN and humanitarian aid into Gaza, and it opened the floodgates to let just about every group in.

    But the damage was already done. It does not matter that there has not been mass starvation. There has likely been some starvation in small numbers, and there has been dangerous food insecurity in higher numbers.

    After Israel managed to neutralize the starvation claims against it for much of the war, about 21 months into the war, it fell into a trap of its own making by tiptoeing too close to the line in terms of minimal food needs in Gaza and publicly being on record blocking food for two months earlier in the Spring.

    Finally, what utility has Israel really gotten out of recent attacks on dual-hat Hamas terrorists posing as journalists?

    It might be legal to kill such individuals, but if Hamas’s 24 battalions were beaten in summer 2024, what is the utility of killing one more Hamas terrorist, compared with the intense condemnation Israel gets for killing a journalist, dual-hat or not?

    And how much benefit of the doubt does Israel expect to get with incidents like the one on Monday when it accidentally killed journalists, when it recently did so on purpose?

    It is not that Israel does not have a case in both instances, or that there are not nuanced differences between the various cases. There are.

    But trying to explain those nuances pales under the overall dynamics in the war and when the last time Hamas was able to really endanger Israelis was around January 2024.

    Knowing Israel had a special shot before the ICC in this unique time period, Jerusalem essentially dropped its chance without trying much of a legal fight.

    Still, for now, the ICC is “only” going after Netanyahu and Gallant.

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is going after the whole Israeli system.

    Fortunately, Israel convinced the ICJ judges earlier this summer to give it until January 2026 to respond to the genocide charges against it.

    Maybe Israel will use the next four months to try to present a better, more transparent, and more stable case to the ICJ than it has to the ICC.

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  • Vladimir Putin visits Mongolia, defies international warrant for his arrest

    Vladimir Putin visits Mongolia, defies international warrant for his arrest

    ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting Mongolia on Tuesday with no sign that the host country would bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    The trip is Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court since it issued the warrant about 18 months ago. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the European Union expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. A spokesperson for Putin said last week that the Kremlin wasn’t worried.

    The warrant puts the Mongolian government in a tough spot. Member countries are required by the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued. But Mongolia, a landlocked country bordering Russia, is highly dependent on its much larger neighbor for fuel and some of its electricity. The court lacks a mechanism to enforce its warrants.

    The Russian leader was welcomed in the main square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, by an honor guard dressed in vivid red and blue uniforms styled on those of the personal guard of 13th-century ruler Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire.

    He and Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa walked up the red-carpeted steps of the Government Palace and bowed before a statue of Genghis Khan before entering the building for their meetings.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh during a welcoming ceremony in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024.

    Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

    A small group of protesters who tried to unfurl a Ukrainian flag before the welcome ceremony were taken away by police.

    Sitting down for talks with Khurelsukh, Putin said that relations between their two countries “are developing in all areas.” He invited the Mongolian president to attend a summit of the BRICS nations – a group that includes Russia and China among others – in the Russian city of Kazan in late October. Khurelsukh accepted, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

    The ICC has accused Putin of being responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine, where the fighting has raged for 2 years.

    On Monday, the EU expressed concern that the ICC warrant might not be executed and said it has shared its concern with Mongolian authorities.

    “Mongolia, like all other countries, has the right to develop its international ties according to its own interests,” European Commission spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said. But she added, “Mongolia is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC since 2002, with the legal obligations that it entails.”

    More than 50 Russians outside the country have signed an open letter urging the government of Mongolia to “immediately detain Vladimir Putin upon his arrival.” The signers include Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was freed from a Russian prison in August in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.

    Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, denounced the warrant against Putin as “illegal” in an online statement Tuesday and those who would try to carry it out as “madmen.”

    Putin, on his first visit to Mongolia in five years, will join a ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of a joint Soviet and Mongolian victory over Japan’s army that controlled Manchuria in northeast China. Thousands of soldiers on both sides died in 1939 in months of fighting over the border’s location between Manchuria and Mongolia.

    “I am very delighted about Putin’s visit to Mongolia,” said Yansanjav Demdendorj, a retired economist, citing Russia’s role against Japan. “If we think of the … battle, it’s Russians who helped free Mongolia.”

    Putin has made a series of overseas trips in recent months to try to counter the international isolation he faces over the invasion of Ukraine. He visited China in May, made a trip to North Korea and Vietnam in June and went to Kazhakstan in July for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

    Last year, he joined a meeting in Johannesburg by video link after the South African government lobbied against him showing up for the BRICS summit. South Africa, an ICC member, was condemned by activists and its main opposition party in 2015 when it didn’t arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a visit.

    Enkhgerel Seded, who studies at a university in Moscow, said that historically, countries with friendly relations don’t arrest heads of state on official visits.

    “Our country has obligations toward the international community,” she said. “But … I think in this case as well, it would not be appropriate to conduct an arrest.”

    Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

    AP

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  • ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrant For Israeli And Hamas Leaders, Including Netanyahu – KXL

    ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrant For Israeli And Hamas Leaders, Including Netanyahu – KXL

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Karim Khan said Monday that he believes Netayahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

    More about:

    Grant McHill

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  • ICC to continue investigation of human rights abuses in Venezuela

    ICC to continue investigation of human rights abuses in Venezuela

    ICC has ruled that efforts within Venezuela to hold officials accountable for alleged abuses have fallen short.

    The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled that its prosecutors can resume an investigation into alleged human rights abuses in the South American country of Venezuela.

    The court’s decision came after the investigation into torture, extrajudicial killings and other abuses was suspended at Venezuela’s request in April 2022, to allow the country to conduct its own probe.

    But in a statement on Tuesday, the ICC concluded that Venezuela had fallen short in its investigation of government officials.

    “The Chamber concluded that, whilst Venezuela is taking some investigative steps, its domestic criminal proceedings do not sufficiently mirror the scope of the Prosecution’s intended investigation,” the court said in a press release.

    It noted “periods of unexplained investigative inactivity” in Venezuela’s probe, as well as failures to sufficiently address questions of persecution and crimes of a sexual nature.

    The court also included concerns that the Venezuelan investigation focused primarily on “lower level perpetrators”, rather than the senior-level officials ICC prosecutors had hoped to scrutinise.

    Tuesday’s announcement was welcomed by Human Rights Watch, an international human rights monitoring group.

    “With today’s decision, ICC judges have greenlighted the only credible pathway to justice for the victims of abuses by [Venezualan President] Nicolas Maduro’s government,” Juanita Goebertus, the group’s Americas director, said in a statement.

    “The decision confirms that Venezuela is not acting to bring justice for the crimes likely to be within the ICC’s investigation. Impunity remains the norm.”

    This is not the first time the court has heard doubts about Venezuela’s internal probe, however.

    In November, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan argued that Venezuela’s efforts “remain either insufficient in scope or have not yet had any concrete impact on potentially relevant proceedings”. He called for the court to resume its investigation.

    On Tuesday, the court seemed to accept that argument, finding that legal reforms carried out by Venezuelan authorities have been inadequate to justify further delay.

    Earlier this month, Khan met with President Maduro in Caracas to sign an agreement to establish an office for ICC prosecutors inside the country. Khan called it a “significant step”.

    The Maduro administration had previously indicated it did not believe the investigation was warranted.

    In recent months, however, Maduro has seen his administration enjoy renewed international ties, after several countries refused to recognise his re-election in 2018.

    In August, Colombia restored full diplomatic relations with Maduro’s government, and in January, Brazil followed suit.

    But his administration continues to face criticism within the region for its alleged abuses. At a summit this month of Latin American leaders, Chilean President Gabriel Boric dismissed assertions that questions about Venezuela’s human rights record are part of a “narrative” to smear the country.

    “It’s not a narrative construction. It is a reality. It is serious,” Boric said, adding that Chile considers human rights “basic and important”.

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  • Drones attack Ukrainian capital, Moscow says US behind Kremlin drone

    Drones attack Ukrainian capital, Moscow says US behind Kremlin drone

    • White House, Kyiv deny Russian accusations
    • Zelenskiy visits The Hague, says Putin must face justice
    • Diplomats work on extending Black Sea grains deal

    KYIV, May 4 (Reuters) – Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday evening, the fourth assault in as many days subjecting residents to spasms of gunfire and explosions, and at least one drone was shot down.

    City authorities had declared an alert for Kyiv and the surrounding area. Residents who had gone to air raid shelters said the drones arrived more quickly than usual after the alerts were declared. Reuters witnesses heard gunfire and repeated heavier explosions near the city centre.

    The attacks started just after 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) and lasted around 20 minutes. Ukraine’s air force said in a statement that it had destroyed one of its own drones after the drone lost control over Kyiv region, probably because of a technical failure. It wasn’t clear how many drones in total were destroyed.

    Russia said on Thursday that the United States was behind a purported drone attack on the Kremlin aiming to kill President Vladimir Putin. Washington and Kyiv denied involvement.

    Putin will head a scheduled meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Friday and the Kremlin incident could be on the agenda, TASS news agency reported.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in The Hague after visiting the International Court of Justice, said Putin must be brought to justice over the war and that Kyiv would work to create a new tribunal for this purpose.

    In other diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on a visit to Brazil that she encouraged the government to include Ukraine in any attempt to negotiate an end to the war. She was referring to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s comments calling on the West to stop arming Ukraine to allow peace talks to start.

    There are currently no peace talks to end the war, which has devastated Ukrainian towns and cities, killed thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.

    FRONTLINE ACTION

    Nearly 50 Russian attacks were repelled along the main sectors of the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Thursday evening. The heaviest fighting is still in Bakhmut and in Maryinka, further south in Donetsk region, it said.

    Russian forces also launched 66 air raids and engaged in 33 shelling episodes on Ukrainian positions and on towns and villages, causing casualties and damaging infrastructure, the report said.

    Smoke rises over the city after remains of a shot down Russian drone landed on buildings, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 4, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

    Reuters was not able to verify the battlefield accounts.

    MOSCOW CITES ‘US ORDERS’

    Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, without providing evidence, said Ukraine had acted on U.S. orders to attack the Kremlin citadel in the early hours of Wednesday.

    White House national security spokesperson John Kirby dismissed Russian “lies” and said there still was no conclusive evidence as to the authenticity of a video showing the drone at the Kremlin.

    “Attempts to disown this (attack on the Kremlin), both in Kyiv and in Washington, are, of course, absolutely ridiculous. We know very well that decisions about such actions, about such terrorist attacks, are made not in Kyiv but in Washington,” Peskov told reporters.

    Peskov said an urgent investigation was under way and that any response would be carefully considered and balanced.

    Russia has increasingly accused the United States of being a direct participant in the war, intent on inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Moscow. Washington denies this, saying it is arming Kyiv to defend itself and retake illegally seized land.

    KYIV, ODESA TARGETED

    Earlier on Thursday, Russia fired two dozen combat drones at Ukraine, hitting Kyiv and also striking a university campus in the Black Sea city of Odesa. There were no reports of casualties. Russia denies targeting civilians in Ukraine.

    Diplomats, meanwhile, are still working to keep a package deal for Ukrainian and Russian agricultural exports alive beyond May 18. Technical personnel from Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and the United Nations will meet on Friday to discuss the deal, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.

    Russia has a list of demands it wants met for continuation of the Black Sea grains pact, which the U.N. said helps tackle a global food crisis aggravated by Russian forces invading neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Zelenskiy has vowed to drive all invading Russian forces back to the borders set in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He said on Thursday the whole of Ukrainian society was preparing for a counteroffensive, which he said would be successful against what he called a “demotivated” Russia.

    Reporting by Kyiv, Moscow and Amsterdam buros
    Writing by Gareth Jones
    Editing by Nick Macfie

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Russian charged with war crimes may brief U.N. Security Council

    Russian charged with war crimes may brief U.N. Security Council

    UNITED NATIONS, April 3 (Reuters) – Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, is likely to brief an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council this week, according to a note seen by Reuters on Monday.

    Russia, which holds the monthly rotating presidency of the 15-member body for April, told council members in a note that it plans to hold an informal meeting on Wednesday on Ukraine, focused on “evacuating children from conflict zone.”

    “Participants will hear ‘first hand’ information from the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights of the Russian Federation, as well as from children evacuated from the conflict area,” read the note.

    The commissioner is Maria Lvova-Belova. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, as well as the unlawful transfer of people to Russia from Ukraine since Moscow invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

    “They cannot invite a credible briefer because they do not have any credibility on this issue,” Britain’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador James Kariuki told Reuters in a statement. “Russian leaders have been charged by the ICC with unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. That is a war crime.”

    Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Monday that the meeting briefers would be announced shortly. Such meetings are held at U.N. headquarters, but not in the Security Council chamber, and briefings can be done virtually.

    ‘APRIL FOOL’S JOKE’

    Moscow has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

    Nebenzia told reporters last month that the informal meeting of Security Council members to be held on Wednesday had been planned long before the ICC announcement and it was not intended to be a rebuttal of the charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova.

    While a feature of Russia’s presidency, members do not need to be the rotating monthly president to hold such meetings.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to travel to New York to chair formal Security Council meetings later in the month on the Middle East and on “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the U.N. Charter.”

    The 193-member U.N. General Assembly has criticized Russia for violating the founding U.N. Charter by invading its neighbor and called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in line with the principles of the U.N. Charter.

    Given Russia’s Security Council presidency started on April 1, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters on Monday: “It’s like an April Fool’s joke … We expect that they will behave professionally.”

    “But we also expect that they will use their seat to spread disinformation and to promote their own agenda as it relates to Ukraine, and we will stand ready to call them out at every single moment that they attempt to do that,” she said.

    Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Don Durfee and Bill Berkrot

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Putin ally proposing banning ICC in Russia

    Putin ally proposing banning ICC in Russia

    March 25 (Reuters) – Russia’s parliament speaker on Saturday proposed banning the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crimes.

    Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin’s, said that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave “assistance and support” to the ICC.

    “It is necessary to work out amendments to legislation prohibiting any activity of the ICC on the territory of our country,” Volodin said in a Telegram post.

    Volodin said that the United States had legislated to prevent its citizens ever being tried by the Hague court and that Russia should continue that work.

    Any assistance or support for the ICC inside Russia, he said, should be punishable under law.

    The ICC issued an arrest warrant earlier this month accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. It said there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility.

    Russian officials have cautioned that any attempt to arrest Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since the last day of 1999, would amount to a declaration of war against the world’s largest nuclear power.

    In its first warrant for Ukraine, the ICC called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation since Feb. 24, 2022.

    The Kremlin says the ICC arrest warrant is an outrageously partisan decision, but meaningless with respect to Russia. Russian officials deny war crimes in Ukraine and say the West has ignored what it says are Ukrainian war crimes.

    Big powers such as Russia, the United States and China are not members of the ICC though 123 countries are state parties to the Rome Statute, including Britain, France, Germany and some former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan.

    Ukraine is not a member of the ICC, although Kyiv granted it jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed on its territory.

    Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Stephen Coates

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Guy Faulconbridge

    Thomson Reuters

    As Moscow bureau chief, Guy runs coverage of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Before Moscow, Guy ran Brexit coverage as London bureau chief (2012-2022). On the night of Brexit, his team delivered one of Reuters historic wins – reporting news of Brexit first to the world and the financial markets. Guy graduated from the London School of Economics and started his career as an intern at Bloomberg. He has spent over 14 years covering the former Soviet Union. He speaks fluent Russian.
    Contact: +447825218698

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  • Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine slams Putin’s nuclear weapons plan

    Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine slams Putin’s nuclear weapons plan

    March 26 (Reuters) – A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would destabilise that country, which he said had been taken “hostage” by Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a standoff with the West.

    DIPLOMACY AND SANCTIONS

    * Russia and China are not creating a military alliance and the cooperation between their armed forces is “transparent”, Putin said in comments broadcast on Sunday, days after hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the Kremlin.

    * Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday he would push for fair peace in the war in Ukraine that included “territorial integrity”, when he visits China next week.

    * Putin held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said. Erdogan thanked Putin for his “positive attitude” in extending the Black Sea grain deal, the Kremlin said in a statement.

    BATTLEFIELD

    * Ukrainian forces have managed to blunt Russia’s offensive in and around the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, where the situation is stabilising, commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy said on Saturday. Separately, Britain’s defence ministry said the months-long Russian assault on the city had stalled, mainly as a result of heavy troop losses.

    * The Ukraine General Staff said on Sunday Ukrainian forces had repelled 85 Russian attacks over the past 24 hours in several parts of the eastern front, including the Bakhmut area.

    * U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Saturday he will visit the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine next week to assess the serious situation there.

    * More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday.

    *Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

    ECONOMY

    * Ukraine will no longer resort to “dangerous” monetary financing to fund the war against Russia, its central bank governor, Andriy Pyshnyi, told the Financial Times in an interview.

    RECENT IN-DEPTH STORIES

    * INSIGHT-Inside Ukraine’s scramble for “game-changer” drone fleet

    * Peace plans and pipelines: What came out of the Putin-Xi talks?

    * SPECIAL REPORT-Wagner’s convicts tell of horrors of Ukraine war and loyalty to their leader

    Compiled by Reuters editors

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • US Senators ask Biden to help ICC with Putin war crimes probe

    US Senators ask Biden to help ICC with Putin war crimes probe

    The US has not agreed to provide information to ICC out of concern that the court could one day scrutinise US officials.

    A bipartisan group of United States Senators have asked President Joe Biden to share information with the International Criminal Court (ICC), as it pursues charges of war crimes against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the “unlawful deportation” of children from Ukraine.

    On Friday, six Democratic and Republican Senators sent a letter to Biden urging him to support the ICC, which issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest last week, more than a year after Russia invaded Ukraine.

    “Despite the urgent need to hold the perpetrators of atrocities accountable, as evidenced by the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin, recent reporting suggests that your administration has not yet used this new authority to provide much-needed assistance to the ICC’s efforts,” the letter reads.

    Biden has previously stated that Russia is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and the letter calls on his administration to contribute to efforts to hold Putin accountable.

    However, the United States itself is not a party to the ICC and has consistently denied that the body has authority to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by US forces.

    That has put the US in an awkward position, as it calls for accountability for Russian officials while shielding its own actions and those of its allies from similar scrutiny.

    Earlier this month, news outlets reported that the US Department of Defense would not share information about Russian atrocities with the ICC, out of concern it could create a precedent that could eventually be applied to US officials accused of war crimes.

    The US Congress passed legislation in December easing restrictions on US cooperation with the ICC, but the New York Times reported that debates have continued within the Biden administration over the issue.

    Friday’s letter — signed by Democrats Dick Durbin, Bob Menendez, Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse as well as Republicans Lindsey Graham and Thom Tillis — said the administration had “bipartisan support for delivering” on its “promise” to hold Putin accountable.

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  • Putin arrest warrant issued by International Criminal Court in the Hague

    Putin arrest warrant issued by International Criminal Court in the Hague

    THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.

    News Pulse: Ahead of Xi’s trip to Moscow, Biden White House calls on Chinese leader to talk with Ukraine President Zelensky

    The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

    It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations.

    The court’s president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC’s judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants.

    “The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law. The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation.”

    A possible trial of any Russians at the ICC remains a long way off, as Moscow does recognize the court’s jurisdiction — a position reaffirmed earlier this week by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov — and does not extradite its nationals.

    Ukraine also is not a member of the court, but it has granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.

    The ICC said that its pretrial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”

    The court statement said that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others [and] for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”

    From the archives (February 2023): Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, U.S. Vice President Harris says

    On Thursday, a U.N.-backed inquiry cited Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, among potential issues that amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

    The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a “filtration” system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.

    But on Friday, the ICC put the face of Putin on the child abduction allegations.

    Read on:

    Biden vows Russia will ‘never’ win war against Ukraine

    Mike Pence characterizes fellow Republicans challenging ongoing U.S. assistance of Ukraine as ‘apologists for Putin’

    Tucker Carlson questionnaire reveals a fault line among Republicans: U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion

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  • Exclusive: Ukraine accuses Russian snipers of abusing child, gang raping mother

    Exclusive: Ukraine accuses Russian snipers of abusing child, gang raping mother

    • Soldiers assaulted family soon after invasion, prosecutors say
    • Ukraine accuses Russian army of widespread sexual assaults
    • President Vladimir Putin’s government denies atrocities

    KYIV, March 14 (Reuters) – Ukraine has accused two Russian soldiers of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and gang raping her mother at gunpoint in front of her father, as part of widespread allegations of abuse during the more than one-year-long invasion.

    According to Ukrainian prosecution files seen by Reuters, the incidents were among a spree of sex crimes Russian soldiers of the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade committed in four homes of Brovary district near the capital Kyiv in March 2022.

    Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Phone numbers listed for the brigade were out of order. Two officials at the Samara Garrison, of which the brigade is a part, said they were unable to give contacts for the unit when contacted by Reuters, with one saying they were classified.

    During Moscow’s failed push to capture Kyiv after its Feb. 24 invasion, soldiers entered Brovary a few days later, looting and using sexual violence as a deliberate tactic to terrorise the population, the Ukrainian prosecutors said.

    “They singled out the women beforehand, coordinated their actions and their roles,” said the prosecutors, whose 2022 documents were based on interviews with witnesses and survivors.

    Most of the alleged atrocities took place on March 13, when soldiers “in a state of alcoholic intoxication, broke into the yard of the house where a young family lived,” the prosecutors alleged.

    The father was beaten with a metal pot then forced to kneel while his wife was gang raped. One of the soldiers told the four-year-old girl he “will make her a woman” before she was abused, the documents said.

    The family survived, though prosecutors said they are investigating additional crimes in the area including murders during the same period.

    President Vladimir Putin’s government, which says it is fighting Western-backed “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, has repeatedly denied allegations of atrocities. It has also denied that its military commanders are aware of sexual violence by soldiers.

    The soldiers were both snipers, aged 32 and 28, the files said, adding that the former had died while the younger, named as Yevgeniy Chernoknizhniy, returned to Russia.

    When Reuters asked for the identities of both soldiers, prosecutors provided only the name of the younger man. When Reuters called a number in online databases for him, a person saying he was Chernoknizhniy’s brother said he was deceased.

    “He died. There’s no way you can get hold of him,” said the man, crying. “That’s all that I can say.”

    Reuters was unable to independently confirm his assertion.

    GROWING ACCUSATIONS

    The two snipers were among six suspects accused in the Brovary assaults, which prosecutors say is one of the most extensive investigations of sexual abuse since the invasion.

    After the alleged attack on the girl and her parents, the two soldiers entered the house of an elderly couple next door, where they beat them, prosecutors said, also raping a 41-year-old pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl.

    At another location where several families lived, the soldiers forced everyone into the kitchen and gang raped a 15-year-old girl and her mother, they said.

    All the victims survived, prosecutors said, and were receiving psychological and medical assistance.

    A pre-trial investigation is ongoing into the possible role of superior officials in the Brovary attacks, prosecutors said, in a case adding to growing allegations of systematic sexual abuse by Russian soldiers.

    Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office says it is investigating more than 71,000 reports of war crimes received since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops over the border.

    Ukrainian investigators know the probability of finding and punishing suspects is low and potential trials would be mainly in absentia, but there are also international efforts to prosecute war crimes including by the International Criminal Court.

    While suspects are unlikely to be surrendered by Moscow, anyone convicted in absentia may be placed on international watchlists, which would make it difficult to travel.

    Russia has also accused Ukrainian forces of war crimes, including the execution of 10 prisoners of war.

    A U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has said that most of the dozens of sexual violence accusations pointed at the Russian military.

    So far, Ukrainian prosecutors have convicted 26 Russians of war crimes – some prisoners of war, some in absentia – of which one was for rape.

    Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Stefaniia Bern in Kyiv;
    Additional reporting by Anton Zverev and Maria Tsvetkova;
    Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Cawthorne

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • ICC to resume investigation into Philippines’s deadly drug war

    ICC to resume investigation into Philippines’s deadly drug war

    Manila had argued it was conducting its own investigation into deaths under the controversial policy.

    The International Criminal Court has said it will reopen its investigation into possible “crimes against humanity” in the Philippines over former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people.

    The Hague-based court announced plans for an investigation in February 2018 but suspended its work in November 2021 at the request of the Philippines’ government after Manila said it was undertaking its own review.

    Last June, having considered the files submitted by the authorites in the Philippines and others, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said the delay was not warranted and filed an application to reopen the ICC case.

    The court has since been examining submissions from the Philippines, the prosecutor and victims. In a statement on Thursday, the ICC said it was “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Court’s investigations”.

    The statement added: “The various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the Court’s investigation.”

    Duterte, a former mayor of the southern city of Davao who campaigned for office on a platform of fighting crime, launched his “war on drugs” as soon as he took office in June 2016, and repeatedly urged police to “kill” drug suspects.

    A United Nations report in 2021 found that 8,663 people had been killed in anti-drug operations but the Human Rights Commission of the Philippines and local human rights groups say the toll could be as much as three times higher.

    Human Rights Watch says it found evidence that police were falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings, with Duterte continuing the “large-scale extrajudicial violence as a crime solution”, which he had established during his 22 years running Davao.

    Duterte announced in March 2018 that he would withdraw the Philippines from the ICC – a decision that took effect a year later – and that his government would not cooperate with any investigation.

    The court has jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed up until March 2019 when the Philippines’s withdrawal became official.

    Presidents in the Philippines can serve only one six-year term and Duterte was replaced by Ferdinand Marcos Jr last year. Marcos Jr has said he will continue the “war on drugs” but with a focus on rehabilitation.

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  • Ukraine, Baltics rebuke Macron for suggesting ‘security guarantees’ for Russia

    Ukraine, Baltics rebuke Macron for suggesting ‘security guarantees’ for Russia

    • World needs security guarantees from Russia, says Zelenskiy aide
    • Baltic states also reject Macron’s suggestion
    • Senior U.S. diplomat says Putin not sincere about peace talks

    Dec 4 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion the West should consider Russia’s need for security guarantees if Moscow agrees to talks to end the war in Ukraine unleashed a storm of criticism in Kyiv and its Baltic allies over the weekend.

    In an interview with French TV station TF1, Macron said that Europe needs to prepare its future security architecture and also think “how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.” read more

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s top aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, said that it is the world that needs security guarantees from Russia, not the other way around.

    “Civilized world needs ‘security guarantees’ from barbaric intentions of post-Putin Russia,” Podolyak said on Twitter on Sunday.

    Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said a “denunclearized and demilitarized” Russia would be the best guarantee of peace not only for Ukraine, but also for the world.

    “Someone wants to provide security guarantees to a terrorist and killer state?” Danilov wrote on Twitter.

    “Instead of Nuremberg – to sign an agreement with Russia and shake hands?”

    The trials in Nuremberg to prosecute Nazi war criminals after World War Two are seen today seen as the forerunners of tribunals like the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Moscow denies allegations its forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine.

    After several rounds of talks earlier in the war, Kyiv and Moscow have not met to negotiate the end of the conflict for months. Kyiv says peace talks are only possible if Russia halts its attacks and withdraws from all Ukrainian territories it seized.

    But the Kremlin said the West must recognise Moscow’s declared annexation in September of “new territories” before any talks with Putin. read more

    Macron last week held talks with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington on the war in Ukraine. Biden said afterwards that there were no conditions for U.S.-Russia discussions about ending the conflict. read more

    U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, however, said Putin’s insistence on recognition of the declared annexations indicated he was not serious about peace talks.

    “Diplomacy is obviously everyone’s objective but you have to have a willing partner,” she told reporters after meeting Zelenskiy in Kyiv on the weekend. “And it’s very clear … that Putin is not sincere or ready for that.”

    Zelenskiy has not commented on Macron’s suggestion.

    “IT WILL NOT FLY”

    Macron’s suggestion of security guarantees for Moscow has also spurred criticism in some Baltic countries that border Russia and see it as growing threat.

    Former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb said he “fundamentally” disagreed with Macron.

    “The only security guarantees we should focus on are essentially non-Russian,” he said on his Twitter account. “Russia needs first to guarantee that it does not attack others.”

    Lithuania’s former foreign minister, Linas Linkevicus, said that Russia has security guarantees as long as it does not “attack, annex or occupy” its neighbours.

    “If anyone wants to create a new security architecture that allows a terrorist state to continue its methods of intimidation, they should think again, it will (n)ot fly,” Linkevicus said on Twitter.

    In Kyiv, David Arakhamia, a lawmaker and member of Ukraine’s negotiation team with Russia when negotiations were taking place, said Ukraine is ready to provide Russia with security guarantees as long as it met four conditions.

    “For this it is enough: leave the territory of our country, pay reparations, punish all war criminals; voluntarily surrender nuclear weapons,” Arakhamia said on the Telegram messaging app.

    “After that, we are ready to sit down at the negotiation table and talk about security guarantees.”

    Macron and Zelenskiy have held frequent talks during the more than nine months of war, and Zelenskiy has thanked the French president for trying to find diplomatic solutions while also rejecting Macron’s suggestions that Kyiv could be ready to compromise.

    In May, Macron was also widely criticised for saying Russia should not be humiliated so that when the fighting stops in Ukraine a diplomatic solution can be found. read more

    Writing in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Stephen Coates

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • T20 World Cup 2022: Indian cricketers upset over ‘cold food and sandwiches’ served after practice

    T20 World Cup 2022: Indian cricketers upset over ‘cold food and sandwiches’ served after practice

    The Indian cricket team has expressed their dissatisfaction with the ‘cold food and sandwiches’ served after the practice session. The incident occurred in Sydney, where Team India will play a match against the Netherlands on Thursday (October 27).The Indian cricket team showed their displeasure with the after-practice menu served to them on Tuesday, and a few cricketers decided to eat in their hotel rooms.

    On Tuesday, the Indian team had an optional training session in which all of the fast bowlers, along with all-rounder Hardik Pandya, batter Suryakumar Yadav, and spinner Axar Patel, were rested.

    After defeating archrivals Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday, the Rohit Sharma-led Indian cricket team had travelled to Sydney for their next Super 12 stage game.

    A BCCI official, on the condition of anonymity, told PTI, “It’s not like any boycott… Some players did pick up fruits and falafel but everyone wanted to have lunch and hence they had food going back to the hotel.”

    “You can’t just have a cold sandwich (not even grilled) with avocado, tomato and cucumber after two hours of training. That is plain and simple inadequate nourishment,” he further added.

    According to reports, the post-practice food included custom sandwiches, fruits, and falafel (very common in this part of the world).

    Notably, unlike in bilateral series, where the host association is in charge of hospitality, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is providing food and lodging during the T20 World Cup 2022.

    Also Read: Swiggy celebrates Virat Kohli in style, gives away discount coupon

    Also Read: Virat Kohli’s match winning knock against Pakistan: Key lessons to learn

    Also Read: ‘Watching the last three overs again’: Google CEO Sundar Pichai shuts Pakistani troll in style

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  • As Politics Take A Back Seat Momentarily, The Rare India-Pakistan Match Will Stop The Cricket World

    As Politics Take A Back Seat Momentarily, The Rare India-Pakistan Match Will Stop The Cricket World

    Indicative of the magnetic power of bitter rivals India and Pakistan, rare contests which provide a spell on the entire cricket world, especially their legions of obsessive fans, predicting Melbourne’s temperamental weather has become something of a pastime in recent days.

    The forecast for the T20 World Cup blockbuster days out looked dire for the packed clash on Sunday at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, expected to attract more than 92,000 fans, a figure that is only bettered by Grand Finals in the Australian Football League – the indigenous ‘footy’ code being the most popular sport Down Under.

    Prognosticating Melbourne’s weather is almost pointless. Anyone who has been there can attest that with Victoria’s capital renowned for having four seasons in one day and, fortunately, perhaps willed by the hopes of the entire cricket world, the forecast has improved dramatically and on match eve there appears little prospect of inclement conditions.

    The International Cricket Council, most notably, will be breathing a sigh of relief with Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph reporting that refunds would have cost the governing body several millions if it was a washout. Wild weather lashed the east coast of Australia last week although the tournament’s opening week in Geelong and Hobart was mostly unaffected.

    Fans too will be overjoyed with India and Pakistan rarely playing each other in cricket—a sport that is almost a religion across a region of about 1.6 billion people – due to political differences with India’s government not allowing its national cricket team to play their arch-nemesis in bilaterals.

    Even though it is a travesty that they don’t play each other in Tests, the last being 15 years ago, the scarcity does add to the anticipation with massive television numbers guaranteed every time they do meet.

    The foes produced the highest watched match of the men’s World Cup in 2019 with a worldwide television audience of 273 million and more than 50 million digital-only viewers, according to the ICC.

    It is not hyperbolic to state that it will be the most watched sports event in the world this weekend.

    And it will be the third match between them in the past couple of months with the teams splitting five-wicket victories at the Asia Cup. But politics continue to fester in the backdrop, interfering this wonderful rivalry, underlined by BCCI secretary Jay Shah, probably the most influential figure in cricket who doubles as the Asian Cricket Council president, publicly stating that next year’s Asia Cup will have to be shifted away from Pakistan.

    The final decision is expected from India’s home ministry although India’s sports minister Anurag Thakur said he is “expecting” Pakistan to play the 2023 ODI World Cup in India.

    After a long period as vagabonds, unable to play at home most of last decade due to security concerns, Pakistan have returned home and even hosted previously reticent Australia and England this year. Enticing India, however, looms as an entirely different challenge.

    Attempting to thaw relations, Pakistan Cricket Board boss Ramiz Raja, the charismatic former captain then turned popular broadcaster, has tried to pursue more cordial relations with his counterparts since taking the reins just over 12 months ago.

    He has proposed more matches between Pakistan and India through triangular and quadrangular One-Day International series although they haven’t gotten off the ground just yet.

    “We saw the world stop when India and Pakistan played at the Asia Cup,” Raja recently told me. ”We have that power at the Asian level to organize more Asia Cups which would see more matches between India and Pakistan. It’s an iconic rivalry, the people want it. The more the merrier.”

    Unlike his predecessor Ehsan Mani, a former ICC president, who recently told me that India shouldn’t have the lion share of the ICC’s revenue funding, Raja has been much more diplomatic.

    In the ICC’s current cycle surplus from 2015-2023, according to documents seen, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) receive $371 million well ahead of England ($127 million) while seven Full Members, including Pakistan, are allocated $117 million.

    “I’m happy for India to take the most because they make almost all of what is in the ICC’s coffers,” Raja said.

    The teams themselves have seemingly gotten on well with each other, playing with smiles and sportsmanship, which should act as a unifying tool, something that political and cricket leaders from both countries would be wise to take heed of.

    But with all eyes watching, fueled by massive stakes in the T20 World Cup opener for both teams, the MCG will be a cauldron amid an electric atmosphere crammed with probably the two most passionate fan bases in cricket.

    If the rain stays away.

    Tristan Lavalette, Contributor

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