The United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police has received roughly 50 referrals alleging war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The Met’s War Crimes Team, which is a part of the Counter-Terrorism Command, has worked to gather evidence of war crimes in support of the International Criminal Court’s investigation.
Most of the referrals “relate to incidents across Ukraine since the latest phase of the conflict began in February, and, specifically what appear to be attacks against the civilian population,” the police said in a statement on Friday.
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“Since the start of the recent military activity in February, our officers have been proactively engaging with Ukrainian communities in the U.K.,” Detective Chief Superintendent Dominic Murphy, head of the CTC, said. “This is to make sure anyone here in the U.K. who has received direct evidence of potential war crimes knows that this can be reported to us, but also to make sure that anyone affected by these terrible events can also be given the support and help that they might need.”
Russian forces have been accused of committing atrocities against more than just Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian civilians have been executed with their hands tied behind their backs in Bucha, while mass graves were found there and in Mariupol. It’s unknown how many bodies were in them, though the former contained hundreds.
Russian troops also attacked civilian infrastructure and dozens of healthcare facilities while using the Red Cross emblem on military vehicles.
The ICC chief Prosecutor Karim Khan labeled Ukraine a “crime scene” shortly after he visited last week.
Khan’s team has “reasonable grounds” to believe Russian troops committed war crimes, though he said, “We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth. That requires independent, impartial investigation.”
Allen Weiner, a Stanford University senior law lecturer and the head of its program in international conflict and negotiation, previously told the Washington Examiner in an interview that speed is important with these investigations but that investigators “have to be very careful about subjecting their own personnel to risks, so there’s going to be a trade-off there.”
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Some evidence, however, can still be uncovered even if investigators aren’t there immediately, he said, such as “if people were killed with their hands tied behind their backs” or “if you see whether people were shot at closer range or not” or in “some kind of point-blank fashion.”
Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said it has begun investigating roughly 5,800 allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces. Iryna Venediktova, the prosecutor general, said her office has 500 suspects they’re investigating, including “top politicians, top military, top propaganda agents of the Russian Federation.”
