JBI Appeal on the One-Year Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, flouting the international rules-based order created following World War II that prohibits armed aggression and calls on parties to armed conflicts to protect civilians to the greatest extent feasible. The Russian invasion has had catastrophic consequences for the people of Ukraine; it has given rise to a geopolitical crisis and triggered harmful global repercussions as well.

Within weeks of Russia’s invasion, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) published a statement calling on States to respond robustly to Russia’s military campaign, including its reported commission of widespread and systematic human rights violations and war crimes in Ukraine. [1] JBI set out detailed recommendations urging States to act individually and collectively, including through the United Nations, to (a) establish and support independent, impartial monitoring mechanisms and to document and verify the reports of widespread violations emerging from Ukraine and beyond; (b) amplify the findings and conclusion of independent and impartial monitors and to raise alarm about reports of egregious abuses; (c) mobilize collective responses to the crisis in Ukraine that reaffirm the importance of respect for human rights; (d) take effective action to hold accountable and deter further harmful actions by the individuals and entities most responsible for violations; and (e) ensure that those affected by the conflict receive needed assistance.

As the world marks the one-year anniversary of the conflict and reflects on the devastating harm that the people of Ukraine, and also many in Russia, have experienced as a consequence of Russia’s actions, it is incumbent that all States commit to take further action, individually and collectively, to advance these recommendations and bring about an end to the conflict and the widespread human rights violations that are ongoing, and that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity while creating the necessary conditions for the people of Ukraine to obtain redress, including guarantees that the harm to which they have been subjected will not be repeated in the future.

Over the past year, Russian forces have carried out a campaign of large-scale missile, artillery, and drone attacks on cities throughout Ukraine, causing widespread devastation and destroying critical civilian infrastructure. Addressing a meeting of the Security Council in January 2023, Assistant UN Secretary General for Human Rights Ilze Brands-Kehris noted that Russian attacks targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure between October 2022 and early January 2023 had “damaged or destroyed half of the energy infrastructure system of Ukraine, resulting in significant electricity and water shortages across the country.” [2] Many Ukrainian health care facilities, schools, and residential buildings have been destroyed, significantly limiting civilians’ access to health care, education, housing, and basic necessities.

Significant numbers of Ukrainian civilians have been physically harmed as a consequence of both indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces on Ukrainian population centers and the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces and their proxies. As of February 13, 2023, independent UN monitors had verified 18,955 civilian casualties in Ukraine during the year, consisting of 7,199 killed and 11,756 injured. The UN monitors acknowledge that their significant capacity and access limitations make these figures amount to only a fraction of the true toll. [3] 

UN monitors and the independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine have documented hundreds of cases in which Ukrainian civilians were deliberately targeted and killed by Russian forces and their proxies. As early as May, then-High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet told the Security Council, “[i]n areas around Kyiv...Russian forces targeted male civilians, who they considered suspicious. Men were detained, beaten, summarily executed and, in some cases, taken to Belarus and Russia, unbeknownst to their families, and held in pre-trial detention facilities.” [4] Nor were these isolated incidents: a report published by the UN Human Rights Office in 2022 documented the summary execution of 441 civilians by Russian forces across three regions of Ukraine during the first five weeks of the invasion. [5] The independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine similarly confirmed that “Russian armed forces shot at civilians attempting to flee,” and engaged in “patterns of summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, illtreatment, and rape and other sexual violence” in areas they occupied in the early weeks of the invasion. [6]

As the invasion progressed, Russian forces continued to target civilians with abusive practices. For example, Assistant Secretary-General Brands-Kehris reported to the UN Security Council in September that “Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups subject civilians to so-called ‘filtration,’ a system of security checks and personal data collection...and detentions that may follow [that] take place outside any legal framework and do not respect the principles of necessity and proportionality,” and that “has resulted, according to credible reports received by OHCHR, in numerous human rights violations” in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine. ASG Brands-Kehris also reported that Russian forces engaged in the “arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance” of “men and women perceived as having ties with Ukrainian armed forces or state institutions, or as having proUkrainian or anti-Russian views” who “were interrogated and sometimes tortured to extract a so-called ‘confession’ of their active cooperation with the Government of Ukraine” and expressed concern about “credible allegations of forced transfers of unaccompanied children to Russian-occupied territory, or to the Russian Federation itself.” [7]

These reported violations are not solely attributable to Russian and Russian-allied armed groups; the private military company known as the “Wagner Group” has reportedly played a key role in several particularly heinous incidents, including the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Bucha, which shocked the world, and the deliberate placement of explosives at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which threatened the lives of millions in and beyond Ukraine. Like the Russian armed forces, the Wagner Group appears to have used these violent tactics against civilians in Ukraine deliberately, and for the purpose of advancing the Russian government’s broader political and economic objectives, repeating practices its forces have employed in other countries. [8]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also prompted mass internal displacement and refugee outflows at a speed unprecedented in modern history. Within a month of Russia’s invasion, over five million Ukrainians had become refugees, and a further eight million were internally displaced, together representing more than one quarter of Ukraine’s pre-war population of 44 million. [9]

At the same time, in Russia, the authorities have sharply accelerated longstanding patterns of repression of their perceived domestic opponents since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, engaging in widespread violations of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association, arbitrary deprivation of liberty and denial of the right to due process, and using excessive force and torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against people in detention for the apparent purpose of silencing dissent and effectively closing civic space within Russia. Freedom of association, media freedom, and human rights and anti-corruption work have been dramatically curtailed through the arbitrary application of “foreign agents” laws, including against the renowned organizations International Memorial and Memorial Human Rights Centre. Many Russian individuals have been arbitrarily detained or subjected to other serious rights violations, been compelled to flee the country, or remain in Russia under threat of retaliation for having expressed opposition to the war or for having engaged in political dissent, human rights advocacy, or independent journalism. [10] These violations have also enabled Russia’s aggression against Ukraine to continue as their effect has been to deprive the Russian population of factual information about the conflict and to largely eliminate the possibility for Russian citizens to understand or debate Russia’s aggression in Ukraine or express opposition to it or other political dissent. 

A. Establishing and supporting independent monitoring mechanisms and encouraging impartial observers to document and verify the reports of widespread violations emerging from Ukraine

After an urgent debate on the situation in Ukraine following the Russian aggression, in March the UN Human Rights Council created an independent international Commission of Inquiry to collect evidence of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Ukraine and to identify those responsible for them. In May 2022, as reports emerged that Russian forces had committed heinous targeted attacks on civilians in areas of Ukraine that they had occupied but from which they had subsequently been compelled to retreat, including the notorious massacre in the town of Bucha, the Human Rights Council convened a Special Session on Ukraine and asked the Commission of Inquiry to investigate and report on those allegations. [11]

The Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (COI) is scheduled to present its first comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council in March 2023, but it has already played an important role in independently gathering and analyzing testimony and other evidence of violations and in reporting on some of the larger patterns that can be discerned among the violations it has documented. In September, the COI reported to the General Assembly that it had “found reasonable grounds to conclude that an array of war crimes and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been committed in Ukraine since 24 February 2022,” and that “Russian armed forces are responsible for the vast majority of the violations.” [12]

Since the start of the invasion, UN Member States have supported the operation of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), both politically and by making voluntary donations to the UN Human Rights office to support it. First created in 2014, the HRMMU remained deployed throughout government-controlled areas of Ukraine following the Russian invasion and has continued to publish near-daily update reports on civilian casualties it has verified as well as two comprehensive reports on human rights in Ukraine, both of which noted that the majority of violations documented were perpetrated by members of Russian armed forces.” [13]

Member States of the Human Rights Council also created a new independent human rights monitor – a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation – in October 2022 in response to Russia’s “severe restrictions on the rights to freedoms of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, both online and offline, resulting in systematic crackdowns on civil society organizations…and political opposition” as well as “reported mass arbitrary arrests, detentions and harassment of civil society representatives.” [14] This is the first UN country-specific human rights mechanism created to investigate a permanent member of the Security Council. The Special Rapporteur will be appointed in April and will begin reporting to the Human Rights Council in September 2023.

The International Court of Justice is also in the process of assessing the legality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Ukraine has initiated proceedings before the Court to seek its opinion on whether Russia mischaracterized the Genocide Convention in claiming that its military action in Ukraine was undertaken with the purpose of preventing and responding to acts of genocide being perpetrated by Ukraine in the socalled “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic.” The ICJ has already indicated that Russia’s interpretation of the Genocide Convention is “doubtful” and issued provisional measures directing Russia to “immediately suspend” its military operation, which Russia has so far ignored.

B. Amplifying the findings and conclusions of independent and impartial monitors and raising alarm about egregious abuses

While Russia has been able to exercise its veto power to inhibit the Security Council from adopting any resolutions condemning or authorizing collective action in response to its invasion of Ukraine, the Security Council has convened numerous meetings on the situation that have provided opportunities for UN officials to provide information about the consequences of the conflict and for States to express their outrage and resolve to bring Russia’s invasion and violations to an end.

Security Council member States have repeatedly requested senior UN officials to share their perspectives on Russia’s invasion and its conduct of hostilities in Ukraine, which they have consistently condemned. On three occasions since the February 2022 invasion, States have successfully requested public briefings to the UN Security Council on Ukraine from senior human rights officials: in May 2022 by then-High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and in September 2022 and January 2023 by Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands-Kehris. The Security Council’s collective willingness to receive these briefings has begun to reverse a troubling recent trend at the Security Council, some members of which have challenged the relevance of human-rights related information to the Council’s work in other contexts. Each time a senior UN Human Rights official has briefed the Security Council on Ukraine, they have presented conflict-related analysis produced by the HRMMU. Other senior UN officials have also cited the HRMMU’s civilian casualty data in their briefings to the UN Security Council on the situation in Ukraine.

C. Mobilizing collective responses to the crisis in Ukraine that reaffirm the importance of respect for human rights

Following Russia’s exercise of its veto power to block action by the UN Security Council, member States acted collectively through other UN bodies to condemn Russia’s invasion and its forces’ human rights violations. In response to Russia’s veto of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned its invasion, [15] the UN General Assembly initiated an emergency special session under the “Uniting for Peace” formula. [16] Since March 2022, it has adopted five resolutions on the situation in Ukraine, all supported by wide margins, condemning Russia’s use of force against Ukraine as aggression in violation of the UN Charter; [17] suspending Russia’s membership on the Human Rights Council; [18] condemning Russia’s subsequent illegal annexation of several regions its forces have occupied; [19] and affirming the right of Ukraine to reparations and authorizing the creation of a register of damages for this purpose. [20]

The UN Human Rights Council has also overwhelmingly condemned Russia’s aggression and human rights violations, including in resolutions adopted in March and at a special session on Ukraine convened in May. The Council similarly expressed its grave concern over Russia’s “systematic crackdowns on civil society organizations, human rights defenders…and political opposition by the Russian authorities, and the extrajudicial killing of government critics” in its October 7 resolution creating the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Russian Federation. [21]

D. Taking effective action to hold accountable and deter further harmful actions by those most responsible for violations

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced his intention to seek authorization to initiate an investigation into the situation in Ukraine in the days following Russia’s invasion, and 43 States parties to the Rome Statute subsequently collectively referred the situation to the Prosecutor’s Office. [22] The Prosecutor’s Office then deployed a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support personnel to Ukraine. [23]

Several States have undertaken domestic efforts to secure accountability for perpetrators of atrocities committed during the conflict in Ukraine or to support third States’ efforts to this end. Ukraine has created a legal task force on accountability with support from the EU and United States, and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine’s office has begun prosecutions, resulting in 25 individuals being found guilty of war crimes to date. [24] Poland’s prosecution service is seeking to gather witness statements on crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, and France’s prosecution office has opened a war crimes investigation. Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Romania [25] are in the process of investigating alleged war crimes in Ukraine and have declared their intention to initiate cases on the basis of universal jurisdiction.

The United States, EU, Canada, and the UK have all enacted targeted sanctions against Russian officials, oligarchs, and businesses. [26] Working in coordination, these countries have targeted the Russian leaders, individuals and organizations whose support has been enabling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and human rights violations in an effort that has been characterized as the “most severe and comprehensive set of sanctions ever imposed on a major economic power.” [27] The U.S., EU and the UK have also expelled some Russian banks from SWIFT, impeding their ability to operate globally. [28] The U.S. and the EU have also taken actions against the Wagner Group, with the United States sanctioning it and its oligarch financier, and in January 2023 designating the group a significant transnational criminal organization, [29] and the EU also imposing restrictive measures against it. [30] The European Parliament has called for Russia to be designated a State sponsor of terrorism and for the Wagner Group to be added to the EU terrorist list. [31]

E. Ensuring that those affected by the conflict receive needed assistance

Russia’s invasion triggered an unprecedented exodus of Ukrainian civilians, with 4.8 million people from Ukraine seeking protection in EU countries within a month of the initial attack, and more than 8.1 million Ukrainian refugees living in Europe today, with the largest numbers residing in Moldova, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. [32] An additional 5.4 million Ukrainians remained in the country but are internally displaced as a result of the conflict, and the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has confirmed that a total of 18 million people inside Ukraine remain in need of humanitarian assistance. [33]

In response to the crisis, the European Union activated its “Temporary Protection Directive,” which grants asylum seekers from Ukraine a range of protections, including a residence permit and the ability to obtain housing and employment, for the first time since the conflict in the Former Yugoslavia more than two decades ago. [34] The EU removed many barriers refugees typically face by offering residency rights, work permits, and access to health care, schools, housing and banking services and began providing financing to support refugees from Ukraine in the most affected member States. The U.S. designated Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), enabling many Ukrainian refugees – reportedly over 85,000 at present – to stay and work in the country. [35]

Donor countries and agencies have also responded positively to international appeals for assistance. The UN’s humanitarian appeal for Ukraine – intended to support both Ukrainians inside the country and those who have fled – has raised $4.3 billion of the $5.6 billion requested, with the U.S., European Commission, Germany, and Canada among the largest donors. [36]

Over the past year, States have responded meaningfully to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its forces’ commission of egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian law through a combination of unilateral, coordinated, and collective actions. However, as Russia’s offensive campaign and illegitimate claim to sovereignty over several areas of Ukraine show no sign of abating, it is critical that States sustain these positive measures and deepen their commitment to securing a just resolution of the conflict in which Ukraine’s territorial integrity is maintained and in which victims of the many grave violations that have been committed are able to obtain justice and redress, as expeditiously as possible.

JBI recommends that States take the following steps in the weeks and months ahead:

1. Maintain and continue to support the independent monitoring mechanisms documenting and verifying the reports of widespread violations emerging from Ukraine and Russia

a. The Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine are playing a critical role in providing objective, impartial accounts of conflict-related violations that rebut Russia’s false narratives and misinformation about the invasion of Ukraine, and instead create an objective factual record justifying the need to hold Russian authorities, including at a senior level, accountable for atrocity crimes. The newly created UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Russian Federation is expected to play a similarly critical role. The efforts of all three mechanisms will need to be supported and continued if they are to have the effect of securing justice for the many Ukrainian victims of violations and their families.

b. Human Rights Council member States should vote in favor of a resolution calling for extending the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine for another year, which will be considered by the Council in early April 2023. The mandate of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine will end in April 2023 unless it is affirmatively extended.

c. States should continue to provide voluntary donations to the UN Human Rights Office to support the work of the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), which is supported by such contributions rather than by the regular UN budget.

d. States should encourage the UN Human Rights Office to provide adequate assistance to the new Special Rapporteur on human rights in Russia to enable the mandate-holder, once s/he is appointed, to prepare thorough initial reports to the Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly in September/October 2023.

e. States should support and facilitate the work of independent human rights monitors and journalists reporting on human rights concerns in Ukraine and Russia.

2. Continue to amplify the findings and conclusions of independent and impartial monitors and raise alarm about egregious abuses

a. States should continue to draw attention to and amplify the findings of independent UN human rights monitors about serious violations in Ukraine at every opportunity. This includes in remarks of their officials during the high-level segment of the Human Rights Council’s 52nd session from February 27 to March 2; in interactive dialogues with the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine at the Human Rights Council; and at meetings of the resumed emergency special session of the UN General Assembly on Ukraine.

b. UN Security Council member States should circulate the report of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine as an official document of the Security Council following its publication in March 2023; they should also invite the Chair of the COI to brief the Council on its findings in a regular Security Council meeting.

c. UN Security Council member States should invite briefings by senior UN human rights officials on Ukraine at a regular frequency for as long as the HRMMU’s monitoring work continues. They should also request the presence of a representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in all closed discussions on Ukraine.

3. Continue to invest diplomatic energy in mobilizing widespread support for collective responses to the crisis in Ukraine that reaffirm the importance of respect for human rights

a. All UN Member States should vote in favor of the draft resolution that the UN General Assembly will consider at the next meeting of the emergency special session on Ukraine on February 22, 2023. The UNGA meeting will consider a resolution entitled “Principles underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” The text repeats the Assembly’s earlier calls for the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine, and for all those who have been forcibly transferred from and deported from Ukraine to be permitted to return, and also expresses the General Assembly’s resolve to maintain Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.”

b. States should invest substantial diplomatic effort in ensuring that the General Assembly and Human Rights Council continue consistently to express support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the need for accountability for atrocity crimes committed during the conflict. They should call on Russia to immediately withdraw from Ukraine’s territory, disclose the identifies of and return Ukrainians who have been forcibly transferred to Russia or abducted, and cease commission of executions, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention. They should demand that Russia release its own citizens whom it has arbitrarily detained and cease its crackdown on political dissent and independent media and civil society, and restore full respect for freedom of expression, freedom of association, and other human rights.

c. States should encourage UN officials to continue to publicize information about the commission of serious human rights violations in Ukraine and Russia gathered by UN monitors, stress that attention to human rights concerns and accountability for human rights violations should be an essential component of all UN action taken to address the conflict in Ukraine, and ensure that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is included as a representative on any senior UN coordination mechanism addressing the situation in Ukraine. [4]

4. Take further action to hold accountable and deter further harmful actions by the individuals and entities most responsible for violations in Ukraine

a. States should continue to provide support to efforts by the International Criminal Court to gather evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. They should also support efforts by third countries to gather evidence on the commission of atrocity crimes in Ukraine and facilitate prosecution of perpetrators of such acts in their domestic courts, as well as the government of Ukraine’s proposal to establish a special international tribunal on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

b. States need to take further actions individually and in coordination with one another to ensure Ukraine can continue defending itself militarily. States should also increase the financial and personal consequences facing the individuals and entities most responsible for the continued aggression and gross human rights violations that Russian forces and those associated with them continue to commit against the people of Ukraine.

c. All States should strengthen existing sanctions on Russian industries and individuals responsible for the commission of serious human rights violations in both Ukraine and Russia. States should impose visa bans to deny Russian officials responsible for overseeing conflict-related violence and domestic repression the ability to travel to their countries.

d. States should consider designating Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism and the Wagner Group a foreign terrorist organization in light of their tactical use of extreme violence against civilian populations to achieve their political objectives. States should bring enforcement actions against entities around the world that facilitate the Wagner Group’s ability to operate.

5. Ensure that those affected by the conflict in Ukraine receive needed assistance

a. States should ensure that Ukrainian victims of the Russian aggression obtain redress and reparation for the harm they have experienced. The World Bank projects that Ukraine recovery will cost an estimated $349 billion. States should consider seizing and transferring Russia’s frozen currency reserves abroad for this purpose, with appropriate oversight to facilitate the Ukrainian government’s ability to rebuild infrastructure damaged by the Russian military’s indiscriminate attacks.

b. States should provide funds to support the UN’s $5.6 billion humanitarian appeal for Ukraine and the surrounding region.

c. States should provide assistance to the States neighboring Ukraine that have accepted large numbers of refugees, namely the countries featured in the UN’s Refugee Response Plan: Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

d. States should expand their domestic infrastructure for refugee resettlement to accommodate the large number of refugees from countries including Ukraine and ensure that survivors of sexual and gender-based violence have access to adequate protection and psychosocial support.

1 JBI Urgent Appeal for a More Robust International Response to Russia’s Invasion of and Human Rights Violations in Ukraine, https://www.jbi-humanrights.org/JBI%20Statement%20on%20Ukraine%20March%202022%20- Final.pdf

2 Ukraine Briefing to the Security Council by ASG Ilze Brands-Kehris (17 January 2023), https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/01/ukraine-briefing-security-council-asg-ilze-brand-kehris.

3 HRMMU, Civilian Casualty Update, Feb 12, 2023, https://ukraine.un.org/en/219008-ukraine-civilian-casualties12-february-2023

4 Ukraine: Bachelet urges protection of civilians, renewed efforts to agree on a ceasefire, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2022/05/ukraine-bachelet-urges-protection-civilians-renewedefforts-agree

5 OHCHR, UN report details summary executions of civilians by Russian troops in northern Ukraine, Dec. 7, 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/un-report-details-summary-executions-civilians-russian-troopsnorthern

6 Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Report to the UN General Assembly (September 2022) https://daccessods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/77/533&Lang=E.

7 Human rights concerns related to forced displacement in Ukraine: Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights at Security Council Open Meeting on Ukraine, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/09/human-rights-concerns-related-forced-displacement-ukraine.

8 Der Spiegel, German Intelligence Intercepts Radio Traffic Discussing the Murder of Civilians, April 7, 2022, https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/possible-evidence-of-russian-atrocities-german-intelligenceintercepts-radio-traffic-discussing-the-murder-of-civilians-in-bucha-a-0a191c96-634f-4d07-8c5c-c4a772315b0d

9 UN Security Council, Letter Dated 28 February 2014 from the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2014/136), UN Doc. S/PV.8979 (Feb. 25, 2022).

10 See, e.g., UN rights expert: Russian Government is ‘destroying civil society day by day,’ (14 September 2022) https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1126591.

11 OHCHR, Independent International Commission on Ukraine, available at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-timeline.html.

12 UN News, War crimes have been committed in Ukraine conflict, top UN human rights inquiry reveals, September 20220, available at https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127691

13 Update on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, available at https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/ua/2022-12-02/HRMMU_Update_2022-12- 02_EN.pdf

14 HRC Res 51/25, Situation of Human Rights in Russia (7 October 2022).

15 UNSC Res. 2623 (Feb. 27, 2022).

16 UNGA Resolution ES-11/1.

17 UNGA Resolution ES-11/2.

18 UNGA Resolution ES-11/3.

19 UNGA Resolution ES-11/4.

20 UNGA Resolution ES-11/5.

21 https://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/HRC/RES/51/25&Lang=E

22 Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan QC, on the Situation in Ukraine: Receipt of Referrals from 39 States Parties and the Opening of an Investigation https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=2022-prosecutorstatement-referrals-ukraine.

23 https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-qc-announces-deployment-forensics-andinvestigative-team-ukraine.

24 The Washington Post, 66,000 war crimes have been reported in Ukraine. It vows to prosecute them all., https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/29/war-crimes-ukraine-prosecution/

25 Telewizja Polska “Romania to investigate Russian crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine,” https://tvpworld.com/61237159/video-romania-to-investigate-russian-crimes-against-humanity-committed-inukraine.

26 Statement by President von der Leyen on the 10th package of sanctions against Russia available at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_23_907

27 Brookings, Sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, https://www.brookings.edu/research/sanctions-on-russia-overukraine/

28 CNN “White House and EU nations announce expulsion of ‘selected Russian banks’ from SWIFT,” https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/26/politics/biden-ukraine-russia-swift/index.html.

29 Treasury Sanctions Russian Proxy Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization, available at https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1220

30 EU imposes restrictive measures against the Wagner Group, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/pressreleases/2021/12/13/eu-imposes-restrictive-measures-against-the-wagner-group/

31 European Parliament declares Russia to be a state sponsor of terrorism, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20221118IPR55707/european-parliament-declares-russia-tobe-a-state-sponsor-of-terrorism

32 UNHCR, Ukraine, available at https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine.

33 OCHA, Ukraine, available at https://www.unocha.org/ukraine.

34 EU invokes Temporary Protection Directive to help those fleeing Ukraine, March 3, 2023, available at https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/news/eu-invokes-temporary-protection-directive-help-those-fleeingukraine_en

35 85,000 Ukrainians Fled to the U.S., and Twice as Many Americans Offered to Help, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-russia-war-immigration-refugees-11669241333

36 UNOCHA, Ukraine, available at https://www.unocha.org/ukraine.