Latvian and Estonian lawmakers have voted in favor of classifying the killing of civilians in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces as acts of genocide, according to statements posted on the two parliaments’ websites, Reuters reported.
Russian troops withdrawing from northern Ukraine a few weeks after the February 24 invasion of Moscow left behind cities full of civilian bodies – evidence of what US President Joe Biden said last week was tantamount to genocide.
The Kremlin has said it strongly opposes the position and has accused Washington of hypocrisy. Moscow has denied targeting civilians in the war, saying there was no evidence that the incidents were fake.
Under international law, genocide is the intent to destroy – in whole or in part – a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The ultimate war crime has a strict legal definition and has rarely been proven in court since it was established in humanitarian law after the Nazi Holocaust.
In its statement, the Latvian parliament referred to “evidence of mass atrocities committed by the army of the Russian Federation, including the murder, torture, sexual assault and desecration of Ukrainian citizens, including women, children and children. Mariupol and elsewhere “.
The Estonian parliament referred to “killings, disappearances, deportations, imprisonment, torture, rape and desecration of corpses”.
On February 28, four days after the invasion, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, announced that a formal investigation had been launched into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. A month later, he called on countries to support his research, and on April 14 he said he would continue to try to persuade Russia to take part in the research.
A first report by a mission of experts set up by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the continent’s top observer on security and rights, lists a “list of inhumanity” by Russian troops in Ukraine, according to the US ambassador to the OSCE.
This includes, said Ambassador Michael Carpenter, evidence of “immediate targeting of civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, executions, looting and forced deportation of civilians to Russia.”
Source: Capital
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