The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has recommended Ukraine to ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the military conflict in the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts.
Ukraine could prepare a petition and invite the ICC to investigate the breaches and the situation that are taking place in eastern Ukraine, HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth told a press conference in Kyiv on Dec. 3.
There could be a risk of some prosecution focusing on the Ukrainian side, he said.
But if the government is serious about its obligation to respect the Geneva conventions, then it should, of course, be much less apprehensive than the separatists about the results of the ICC trial, Roth said.
It was reported that HRW had accused Ukraine of using cluster bombs in areas with civilian population in the military-operation zone in the east of the country.
For its part, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) called such accusations baseless. “All claims about the Ukrainian military using cluster bombs are completely baseless,” NSDC spokesman Andriy Lysenko told Interfax.
He also called on international organizations to be objective in their assessments and remarks and cite specific evidence instead of airing “hollow accusations.”
