Crimes during the war in Ukraine. Challenges to the international public order and faith in justice

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 changed the life of the Ukrainian people fundamentally. These changes affected all areas of social life and caused irreparable losses for the domestic economy, aggravated with the contamination of agricultural lands, loss of jobs due to forced mass migration of the able-bodied population outside Ukraine or displacement to safer regions of the country, the recruitment of men into military service for the period of the martial law. The criminal actions of the aggressor country resulted in cynical murders of civilians, forced displacement of children, destruction of the country's vital infrastructure, countless separated families, disabled people, and destroyed natural resources. Undoubtedly, the mentioned actions fall under the qualification of international crimes as provided for by the applicable international criminal law, as well as the criminal law of Ukraine.

Russia's war against Ukraine determined the need for the development of a complex of effective measures to stop groundless aggression and bring the perpetrators to international criminal responsibility. The lecture is devoted to an overview analysis of the current state of investigation of international crimes and their documentation in Ukraine under the conditions of the martial law.

Interpretation of the content of certain provisions of the effective Criminal Code of Ukraine from the standpoint of the informational component of threats to the national security and territorial integrity of the state and in the conditions of information confrontation and propaganda efforts, allows to identify current challenges to the international public order and to determine individual directions of development of international criminal law.

Alona Klochko is Professor of the International Relations Chair at the Law Faculty of Sumy National Agrarian University; Visiting Professor at the University of Neuchatel.