Russia has jailed more than 200 captured Ukrainian fighters so far, says Lavrov

Since Moscow began its military campaign in Ukraine, Russian courts have convicted more than 200 Ukrainian militants to jail terms, according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview that was published on Sunday with the official RIA news agency. “The courts of the Russian Federation have already sentenced more than 200 representatives of Ukrainian armed formations to long terms of imprisonment for committing atrocities,” Lavrov told RIA. Both sides charge one another with carrying out several crimes throughout the conflict that Russia sparked by invading Ukraine on a large scale in February 2022. The Russian government is still suspected of war crimes and violating human rights, including rape, torture, and the deportation of minors, according to information uncovered by the UN. Vladimir Putin’s arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March on the grounds that Moscow’s forced deportation of Ukrainian minors constituted a war crime. “On our path to justice, the main result of the year is undoubtedly the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Putin,” Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said in a statement on Saturday, summing up 2023. “A historic decision and a clear signal that no one can be above the law.” The Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office has registered more than 121,000 Russian crimes of aggression and war crimes since the war started, according to its website. The UN has also found several cases of Ukrainian authorities committing violations of human rights of people they have accused of collaborating with Russian authorities. Lavrov told RIA that Russia’s main investigative organ, the Investigative Committee, has initiated 4,000 criminal cases against about 900 Ukrainian individuals. “They include not only members of radical nationalist associations, representatives of Ukrainian security forces and mercenaries, but also representatives of the military and political leadership of Ukraine,” Lavrov said. “Those of them who were charged in absentia have been put on the international wanted list.”