The Second Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for two officials of the russian supreme military command.

They are:

• admiral Viktor Sokolov, commander of the Black Sea fleet of the russian armed forces;
• lieutenant general Sergei Kobylash, commander of the long-range aviation of the russian air force.

‘This is the second decision of the International Criminal Court against russian war criminals. Both of them are from russia’s top military and political leadership. This is the result of the SSU investigators’ systematic work. For every crime committed in Ukraine, russia will be held accountable both on the battlefield and in an international court. Such crimes have no statute of limitations,’ said Vasyl Maliuk, Head of the SSU.

According to the investigation, Sokolov and Kobylash are involved in committing war crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine.

Between 10 October 2022 and 9 March 2023, they organized massive missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Dozens of Ukrainian civilians were killed and injured as a result of these strikes.

Such actions by these russian officials are classified by the International Criminal Court under the Rome Statute as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to the investigation, the occupiers used cruise missiles, including the 3M14 Kalibr type, to carry out air attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities.

The aggressor’s main attacks were carried out on energy sector enterprises in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Chernivtsi, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

The investigation was carried out in cooperation with the Prosecutor General’s Office.