The move comes after the court — to which Russia is not a signatory — last year issued indictments against President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, over the removal of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the indictments as a warning to all that “justice for Russian crimes against Ukrainians is inevitable.”
He said Shoigu and Gerasimov “are accused of committing heinous crimes against civilians in Ukraine during Russia’s reckless bombing of Ukrainian critical civilian infrastructure. These barbaric missile and drone strikes continue to kill people and inflict damage across Ukraine,” he said in a statement posted on X.
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The court has no powers of enforcement and relies on the 124 nations that are signatories to the Rome Statute that established the court to arrest those indicted on a charge of war crimes or crimes against humanity if they visit their territories.
Shoigu was defense minister until Putin removed him last month and appointed Andrei Belousov in his place. Shoigu, a Putin loyalist, was instead appointed as head of Russia’s Security Council.
According to the indictment, Shoigu and Gerasimov were allegedly responsible for the war crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and “causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects … and the crime against humanity of inhumane acts.”
The indictment alleged that Russia carried out multiple actions against civilian infrastructure that impacted Ukrainian civilians, adding “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the suspects intentionally caused great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health, thus bearing criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts.”
The ICC indictment also cited alleged crimes from at least Oct. 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023, when Russia carried out a large number of strikes against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure.
The indictment said there were reasonable grounds to believe the two officials bore “individual responsibility” for the alleged crimes either by ordering the crimes or failing to control Russia’s armed forces.
The details of the case were secret to protect witnesses and safeguard investigations, the court statement said.
The Russian Security Council immediately dismissed the significance of the charges against Shoigu calling them “null and void” and “part of the West’s hybrid war against Russia.”
But Ukrainian officials praised the indictments as an important step to ensure accountability for war crimes, in a conflict where massive amounts of video footage, much of it documenting actions that could be war crimes, have emerged.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin expressed gratitude to Ukrainian investigators whom he said had helped to build the case.
Since Oct. 10, 2022, Russia has systematically targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, launching waves of attacks against power grids and power stations across the country, causing widespread damage, disrupting the country’s energy supply and depriving many of heat and electricity during the winter months.
This spring, Russia once more began attacking Ukraine’s power grids, forcing it starting in mid-May to implement rolling blackouts to save energy.
Last week Zelensky said that Russia had damaged or destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s power capacity.
Since the start of the invasion, Russia has also launched strikes on residential areas and civilian buildings, including shopping malls, restaurants and hotels. In recent months, Kharkiv has borne the brunt of Russia’s attacks.
The ICC’s mandate is to protect civilians, including vulnerable women, children, elderly and disabled people from war crimes and to ensure that even powerful figures including national leaders are not beyond the reach of the law, given the frequent reluctance of nations to prosecute their own officials.
In practice, the court has often run into severe headwinds attempting to fulfill its role, and has, for example, never been able to arrest and try the former president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, after he was indicted in 2009 and 2010 for alleged genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes.
In 2016, the court abandoned its case against the current Kenyan President William Ruto, and in 2014 the court dropped charges against his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta. They were charged over post-election violence in 2007 and 2008, but the cases fell apart after Kenyan government officials failed to cooperate and witnesses disappeared or changed their testimony.
In May, the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, announced he had applied to the court for arrest warrants to be issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza during and after the attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khurshudyan reported from Kyiv and Ebel from London.