The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for former Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the current military chief of staff, on accusations of war crimes in Ukraine.
Both are allegedly responsible for "directing attacks" at civilian targets in Ukraine.
The ICC judges said there were sufficient grounds to believe that Shoigu and Gerasimov bore individual criminal responsibility, either by ordering the attacks for others to carry out or failing to exercise proper control over forces under their command.
Specifically, the court alleged that Shoigu and Gerasimov were responsible for missile strikes against Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least October 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023.
"During this time-frame, a large number of strikes against numerous electric power plants and sub-stations were carried out by the Russian armed forces in multiple locations in Ukraine," the court statement said.
The court determined that "alleged campaign of strikes constitutes a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts against a civilian population, carried out pursuant to a State policy."
Given this, "there are reasonable grounds to believe that the suspects intentionally caused great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health, thus bearing criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts," the court wrote in a statement.
Shoigu was dismissed as defence minister by Russian President Vladimir Putin in May after having served in the post since 2012. The court had also previously issued an arrest warrant against Putin for alleged war crimes, including the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
The court has no enforcement mechanism but all states parties to the court are obliged to arrest the wanted persons and hand them over to the court if they are on their territory.
