Tag: War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

Maria Lvova-Belova, the Children’s Rights Advocate Accused of Russian War Crimes

MOSCOW — As children gathered at a holiday camp outside Moscow, they were greeted by a female performer in a kokoshnik, a traditional tiara, who extended the customary Russian greeting of a loaf of bread and salt. The children were not from Russia. They were Ukrainian children brought to the camp from Russian-occupied areas of […]

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Zelensky Denounces ‘Absurd’ U.N. Security Council Presidency for Russia

Ukraine’s leader has responded furiously to Russia’s monthlong presidency of the United Nations Security Council, saying it was “obviously absurd and destructive” that the post should pass to Moscow while it continued its invasion. Russia is scheduled on Monday to preside over a Security Council meeting for the first time since it began the full-scale […]

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Putin Allies Must Decide Whether to Host a Wanted Man

Over a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fragmented the world’s geopolitical landscape, the strength of President Vladimir V. Putin’s friendships faces a test: Will world leaders who intended to host him in the coming months still be willing to welcome a wanted man? The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Mr. Putin, accusing […]

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State Dept. Proposes Joint Tribunal to Try Russian Leaders

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is calling for the creation of a joint tribunal in which Ukraine and international allies would try Russian leaders for crimes of aggression, but some human rights lawyers worry the plan has a fatal flaw: It might shield President Vladimir V. Putin from prosecution. Beth Van Schaack, the State Department’s […]

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Paul Rusesabagina, ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero, Freed From Prison

More than two and a half years after he was kidnapped on a private jet and later sentenced to prison on terror-related charges, Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier turned dissident whose heroism was portrayed in “Hotel Rwanda,” was released from prison late Friday night, according to American officials who briefed reporters in Washington. Mr. Rusesabagina arrived […]

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No Letup in Bakhmut as Ukraine and Russia Brace for Battles Elsewhere

Despite the high cost in lives, Ukrainian and Russian leaders said that the battle for Bakhmut would rage on, even as they brace for a war that they expect to widen and intensify as the weather warms. Officials in both Kyiv and Moscow predicted that Ukraine, taking delivery of Western tanks, missiles and other arms, […]

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Rwanda Announces Release of Paul Rusesabagina, ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero

NAIROBI, Kenya — Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroism in the face of genocide was portrayed in the Oscar-nominated movie “Hotel Rwanda,” will be released from prison on Saturday after being captured, held and tried by the Rwandan government in a case that drew international condemnation, the Rwandan government announced on Friday. His release will end two […]

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The I.C.C.’s Arrest Warrant for Putin is More Than ‘Just Symbolic’

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant last Friday that accused Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and its commissioner of children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. Much of the coverage has focused on the things that the arrest warrant won’t do. The court, which is usually known as the I.C.C., […]

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Xi and Putin Bind China and Russia’s Economies Further, Despite War in Ukraine

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, declared an enduring economic partnership on Tuesday, promising to bring more Russian energy to China and more Chinese companies to Russia as the two leaders sought to insulate their countries from Western sanctions and other consequences of the war in Ukraine. […]

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Justice Dept. Embraces Supporting Role in Pursuing War Crimes in Ukraine

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick B. Garland makes a point of refusing to discuss active investigations, but during a recent trip to Ukraine he broke form, revealing that U.S. prosecutors had identified “several specific” Russians suspected of war crimes against one or more Americans. Despite Mr. Garland’s assessment, the possibility of identifying Russians who targeted […]

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Blinken Says Xi’s Russia Visit Amounts to ‘Diplomatic Cover’ for War Crimes

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Monday said that the visit to Moscow by China’s president days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, amounts to Beijing providing “diplomatic cover for Russia to continue to commit” war crimes. President Xi Jinping’s visit “suggests that China feels […]

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China as Peacemaker in the Ukraine War? The U.S. and Europe Are Skeptical.

When Mr. Putin visited Mr. Xi in Beijing right before the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022, their governments proclaimed a “no-limits” partnership in a 5,000-word statement. The two men saw each other again last September at a security conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Mr. Xi has not talked to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president […]

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Putin Arrest Warrant Shines Light on Deportation of Ukraine’s Children

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s abduction and deportation of Ukraine’s children since its invasion of the country was so well-documented and terrifying that when Russian forces prepared to withdraw from the southern city of Kherson last fall, doctors at a hospital there hurriedly hid babies and falsified their records. When Russian soldiers arrived, the staff at […]

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Arrest Warrant From ICC Pierces Putin’s Aura of Impunity

LONDON — The International Criminal Court accused the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest on Friday, a highly symbolic step that deepened his isolation and punctured the aura of impunity that has surrounded him since he ordered troops into Ukraine a year ago. The court cited […]

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China’s Xi to Visit Putin Under Shadow of War-Crimes Warrant

Global dividing lines over Russia’s war in Ukraine hardened on Friday with the announcement that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, would personally meet with President Vladimir V. Putin in Russia next week — and that he would do so under the shadow of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court that accuses Mr. […]

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What to Know about the ICC’s Arrest Warrant for Putin

The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for war crimes for President Vladimir V. Putin and a second Russian official. Here’s a closer look at the court, the warrant and what it could mean for Russia’s leader. Why did the International Criminal Court issue the warrants? The court says that Mr. Putin […]

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In Myanmar, Atrocities Rise as Army Comes Under Pressure

When the soldiers from Myanmar’s notorious army reached the village of Nanneint, the residents fled. Some took refuge in the basement of a nearby Buddhist monastery. “They thought the soldiers wouldn’t kill monks and people inside the monastery,” said one resident, Khun Htwe, who fled to another village. But the monastery was no sanctuary. On […]

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Russian Attacks Along a Wide Arc of Ukraine Yield Little but Casualties

KYIV, Ukraine — From Kupiansk in the north to Avdiivka in the south, through Bakhmut, Lyman and dozens of towns in between, Russian forces are attacking along a 160-mile arc in eastern Ukraine in an intensifying struggle for tactical advantage before possible spring offensives. Heavy fighting was reported on Monday in and around Avdiivka, a […]

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U.S. Attorney General Garland Meets Zelensky in Ukraine During Surprise Visit

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Friday to reaffirm America’s commitment to help hold Russia responsible for war crimes, a Justice Department spokeswoman said. Mr. Garland held several meetings with President Volodymyr Zelensky and foreign law enforcement officials in Lviv, while attending the United for Justice Conference, the department […]

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Robert Hébras, Last Survivor of 1944 Massacre in France, Dies at 97

Robert Hébras, who by being shielded under dead bodies survived the infamous massacre of June 1944 in which members of an SS Panzer division killed almost everyone in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in west central France, died on Feb. 11 in a hospital in Saint-Junien, not far from Oradour. He was 97 and the last […]

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Biden and Putin Give Clashing Claims of Who Is to Blame on Ukraine

WARSAW — President Biden and Vladimir V. Putin laid out radically different visions on Tuesday for Ukraine’s future, offering sharply contrasting narratives about who is to blame for the bloody, yearlong war and seeming to agree on only one point: The conflict is nowhere near an end. Mr. Biden repeatedly blamed Mr. Putin, the president […]

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Blinken Says He Warned China Over Providing Weapons to Russia

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the United States believed China was considering supplying weapons and other lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine and that he had warned Beijing that doing so “would cause a serious problem” for already strained relations with Washington. The Biden administration has repeatedly warned Russia’s allies […]

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Guided Missile Killed U.S. Aid Worker in Ukraine, Video Shows

Roughly a minute after an American paramedic, Pete Reed, and a team of aid workers began tending to a wounded civilian in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Feb. 2, they were attacked. Mr. Reed, a former U.S. Marine volunteering on the war’s front lines, was killed, and several of his colleagues were wounded. Volunteers […]

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Putin Likely Approved Missile System Used to Down Flight MH17, Inquiry Says

There are “strong indications” that President Vladimir V. Putin decided to supply the antiaircraft missile system that Russia-backed separatists used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet above eastern Ukraine in 2014, a Dutch-led international team found. But the team said on Wednesday that it had suspended its criminal investigation because of insufficient evidence […]

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In Congo, a Pope and a Nation Revitalize One Another

Even the day’s painful afternoon meeting with the victims of gruesome crimes in the country’s embattled east, when survivors put machetes and knives on the floor near the pope to punctuate the horror of their accounts, seemed to remind him of his mission. “Thank you for these testimonies,” he said gravely. And on Thursday, the […]

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