The findings of the just-issued UN report on despicable Russian war crimes: rape of girls and women age 4-82; summary executions, including of boys; brutal torture to death; inhuman and degrading confinement; savage beatings for speaking Ukrainian. ohchr.org/sites/default/…

These violations of humanitarian (the four Geneva Conventions and two Additional Protocols) and human rights law also constitute war crimes (Rome Statute, Art. 8) and crimes against humanity (Rome Statute, Art. 7). This is a devastating indictment of the terrorist Russian state.

Summary: Russia has committed a clear pattern of widespread war crimes: wilful killings, torture, rape, confinement, forced deportation, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure, which are also crimes against humanity, forced deportations.

This goes without saying but in a legal context this is a required finding: Russia’s attack on Ukraine is an act of aggression. This determination can be used if a special tribunal is set up with jurisdiction over the crime of illegal aggression.

In a well-known circus act of cynical lying, Zakharova yesterday piously said that Russia would be happy to provide all needed material if only this investigation had given Russia a voice. But of course it had. Russia refused to cooperate.

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian institutions. Hospitals, schools, kindergartens, train stations. Kramatorsk, Kremenchuk, Mariupol, Chernihiv attacks. All done with highly imprecise weapons that bring indiscriminate death and destruction.

The multiple waves of attacks on the civilian infrastructure are war crimes and crimes against humanity as they were done to purposefully deprive millions of people from the basic necessities of heating, power and water.

Summary executions, a small subset of all, from the north. Again, we know all this but there is great value in an official finding that Russian forces were responsible for the killings.

Executions of those “on the move” (looking for food, medicine, trying to evacuate) are a separate category because such killings imply not merely a disregard for civilians but intent to kill. Cases where cars with “Children” signs were attacked.

Torture, including a “technique” called “call to Putin”. Tells us everything about in whose name they torture and kill.

The widespread sexual violence of men and women. Rapes were combined with severe beatings and strangling. Husbands were murdered before the raped wives. Children were forced to witness their mothers’ rape. Gang rape. Rape of pregnant women resulting in miscarriages.

While Ukraine and Russia are not parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, there will be no impunity for these acts: Ukraine has given ICC jurisdiction and Russia is still bound by it through well-established international customary law.