The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for two Russian military leaders in connection to alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
The court said in a statement that it had issued warrants for Lt. Gen. Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Adm. Viktor Kinolayevich Sokolov. At the time of the alleged crimes, Kobylash was the commander of Long-Range Aviation of the Aerospace Force in the Russian Armed Forces, while Sokolov was commander of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet.
The court’s pretrial chamber found that the “two suspects bear responsibility for missile strikes carried out by the forces under their command against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March 2023,” the ICC said in the statement.
The two military leaders are alleged to have directed attacks at civilian objects and caused excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects. The Court also accused both of the crime against humanity of inhumane acts.
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Tuesday’s announcement marks just the second time the court has issued arrest warrants in its investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Last year, the court issued warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for the war crimes of “unlawful deportation” and “unlawful transfer” of children from occupied areas.
The earlier warrants had a mostly symbolic impact. Russia, like the United States, does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, and the court does not try people in absentia. But it has limited the Russian president’s travel to countries that accept the court’s jurisdiction. Last year, Putin skipped an international summit in South Africa shortly after the warrants were made public.
The ICC’s top prosecutor, British lawyer Karim Khan, announced a probe into potential war crimes in Ukraine in March 2022. Though Ukraine is also not a party to the court, it has accepted its jurisdiction.