Evidence of Russian violence against Ukrainian civilians — murders, kidnappings and rape — continues to emerge on a daily basis. Each liberated locality adds to a grisly realization that a genocide might be taking place in the Russian-occupied Ukraine. Ukraine’s State Prosecutor’s Office has already started investigating crimes committed by Russian troops and the International Criminal Court might get involved as well.
The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are also investigating Russian abuses. Investigations and criminal prosecution of individual perpetrators are important but insufficient. Full accountability — prosecution, reparations, and the creation of a historical record — requires an integrated effort that goes beyond law enforcement and involves historians, social scientists, forensic scientists and other experts.
What Ukraine needs is a dedicated state commission to collect, systematize and analyze evidence of atrocities and other crimes committed during this war. Russian propaganda falsely presents the war as a fight against Nazism. Yet, ironically, Soviet efforts during World War II to uncover and prosecute Nazi crimes in German-occupied parts of the USSR can provide a useful blueprint to hold Russia accountable.
