Several organizations file submission to ICC regarding russians’ hate crimes against Ukrainians

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Center for Civil Liberties and the Kharkiv Human Rights Group have prepared an ICC submission detailing russian hate crimes against Ukrainians. The submission that has already been delivered to the ICC highlights the accountability of five prominent russian propagandists in fueling animosity towards Ukrainians: Vladimir Solovyov, Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselyov, Dmitry Medvedev, and Sergey Mardan. It also addresses the responsibility of Alexey Gromov, the first deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration of russia.

This topic was covered at a discussion at Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.

“This is just a representative group of a wide and massive mechanism of the russian media aimed at inciting hatred. In this submission, we claim that the russian aggression against Ukraine and the mass atrocities committed against Ukrainian citizens are the result of constant russian propaganda aimed at justifying russian aggression and subjugating the civilian population so that fall in line with the so-called russian world,” explained Ilyia Nuzov, Director for International Justice Desk at the FIDH.

According to him, the submission includes various categories of messages that incited terror against Ukrainians. In particular, these messages advance various conspiracy theories.

During the discussion, Volodymyr Yavorskyy, Program Manager at Center for Civil Liberties, noted that each propagandist named in the submission is connected to 5-7 major narratives, which each of them constantly promoted.

During the preparation of the submission, its authors examined 526 hours of broadcasted content and identified over 300 statements that qualify as hate speech.

Maksym Demydenko, Co-Founder of Ukraine War Archive, which was involved in the collection of materials for the submission, noted that a total of about 7,000 materials on a specific topic were prepared for the document.

At the same time, Anna Ovdiienko, lawyer at the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, pointed out that this kind of submission is essentially the first of its kind and expressed hope that it will become the basis for investigation, future arrests and prosecution of guilty persons.

“As of today, this submission is indeed innovative, and we don’t know how the ICC will react to it. But we very much hope that the ICC will see the legal grounds that have been described in this submission by honorable experts and that actually explains why this is a crime that falls under the Rome Statute itself. Although, of course, we will not find such an expression as “hate speech” in the Rome Statute, as it was not included there when it was written. But I believe that this will be the foundation for the investigation leading to future arrests and making those guilty face international criminal responsibility,” she said.

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