International Investigation Centre to Probe Crimes Against Ukraine

The International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, ICPA, a new legal body that will investigate crimes committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was launched on Monday in The Hague.

The ICPA, set up with the support of European Commission, is made up of prosecutors from EU member states who are part of the Joint Investigation Team that is probing serious crimes committed during the ongoing war, together with prosecutors from Ukraine and the International Criminal Court.

The ICPA will prepare cases for future trials before national or international courts related to the crime of aggression against Ukraine and is being seen as a step towards the establishment of a special tribunal that could prosecute President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials involved in the invasion.

Vladislav Harman, the president of EuroJust, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, said that "never in history we had more evidence about the [crime of] aggression as we have today".

"We are speaking about different videos, aerial photography, GPS, the intercepted communication, data on mobile phones and so on," Harman told media at the launch.

But Harman pointed out that when it comes to proving the crime of aggression, evidence of bombings or similar incidents are not enough

"We have to also link all these attacks with certain people who are in the leading positions, either in the political leadership or military leadership, and this will be an another big challenge ahead of us because we have to ensure that first of all, we have admissible evidence," he explained.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan (left), Justice Minister of the Netherlands Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius,...