Ukrainian human rights activists presented a large study on the persecution of Ukrainians in Russian courts. It is about the trials of civilians from the occupied territories and prisoners of war. The conclusions are disappointing: the Russian authorities have turned their courts into an instrument of repression to suppress resistance and create an atmosphere of fear. Therefore, the actions of the judges have signs of war crimes and are subject to review by an international tribunal.
“Hijacking of a watercraft and kidnapping. Punishment in the form of 17 years of imprisonment in a strict regime colony”. Hearing such a ruling, a person unfamiliar with the circumstances of the case would probably think that it is about some pirates of the 21st century. In fact, last year, the judge of the occupation's “Supreme Court of Crimea” Serhiy Pogrebnyak passed this sentence on two Ukrainians, Ivan Tereshchenko and Vasyl Dmytruk, border guards who detained a Russian ship in Ukrainian waters in 2018 and were captured in 2022 when they left Azovstal on the orders of their commander. Pretending that there is no war is just one of the techniques used by the occupation courts against Ukrainians. The Russian authorities are “purposefully creating an alternative legal reality contrary to the standards of international humanitarian law,” the report, which the experts called “Denial of the Right to a Fair Trial as an International Crime during Russia's War Against Ukraine,” states. Six hundred criminal cases were the subject of the study. The authors of the report emphasize that thousands of Ukrainians are at risk.

Human rights activists state that the practice of criminal prosecution of dissenters was launched by the occupiers immediately after the seizure of Crimea. It mostly concerned civilians, but with the beginning of full-scale military aggression, it became widely used against prisoners of war. The very first trials in the occupied Crimea showed that the Russian judiciary ignores many of the general standards by which a court hearing should be conducted. Closing the proceedings from outsiders, ignoring torture, not allowing lawyers to provide evidence, telling prosecution witnesses what to say and what not to say - little has changed in the judicial practice of the aggressor state in 11 years. The authors of the report prove that these are not individual mistakes in individual cases, but a general trend. “These are systemic and widespread violations. This is a complete degradation of the Russian judicial system. It doesn't get any worse. It can't get any worse,” says Moldovan human rights activist Sergei Ostaf, who participated in the study along with his Ukrainian colleagues.

The researchers note that none of the defendants in the trials they studied related to the persecution of residents of the occupied territories for their pro-Ukrainian position, resistance to the occupation, or participation in hostilities were guaranteed a fair trial. Such guarantees are provided by international conventions, and their violation can be considered a war crime. How can we talk about the fairness of the courts when every “Ukrainian” trial is accompanied by the loud accompaniment of propaganda media,” human rights activists explain. Moreover, the propagandists act in a large network, in an organized and synchronized manner. “We see how, right on cue, when the FSB releases information about a detention or a court passes a sentence, the media publish news with a clear bias and negative narrative about the detained or convicted persons. This background, in addition to violating the presumption of innocence, creates an explanation for the population of the Russian Federation that you see: there is a reason for the aggression, we have detained and punished terrible criminals,” says one of the authors of the report, lawyer Daria Svyrydova. According to her, the Russian authorities have spared no expense in making Ukrainians look like terrorists and extremists: three million dollars were spent on covering fifteen trials alone.

A separate area of the study was a comparative analysis of cases involving residents of the occupied territories and Russians accused of similar crimes in the period from 2013 to 2020. It turned out that the difference in the length of prison sentences exceeds 300 percent. “This system was created and built to persecute and discriminate against Ukrainians. I have done similar studies in the context of Belarus and Azerbaijan, and this is not a comparable situation,” says Ostaf.

The researchers identified those responsible for this discrimination. “The direction and coordination of the policy is determined by the political leadership, including the leadership of law enforcement agencies, and implementation is mainly ensured by representatives of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and the judicial system in Russia and the territories occupied by it. The goal of this policy is actually subordinated to the goals of Russia's military occupation of Ukrainian territories: delegitimization of Ukrainian statehood, suppression of Ukrainian resistance to the occupation, and the use of fear of persecution as a tool to control and subjugate the population of the occupied territories,” the report says. As for the perpetrators, it is a common practice, particularly in Crimea, to appoint former Ukrainian judges who have defected to the occupiers to prosecute criminal cases related to support for Ukraine. “The Ukrainian prosecutor's office is looking for them for treason, and at the same time they are actively trying Ukrainian patriots. And also on charges of treason,” the representatives of Crimean Process organization, who participated in the study, sadly state.

Human rights activists believe that those who have launched a system of prosecuting Ukrainians in the occupied territories deserve the attention of the International Criminal Court. There is a precedent, says researcher Tetyana Pechonchyk, recalling that the Nuremberg Tribunal held separate hearings for judges, prosecutors, and representatives of the Nazi German Ministry of Justice. Therefore, human rights activists hope that the arrest warrants issued in The Hague earlier for Putin and Shoigu will soon be supplemented by detention warrants for the head of the Russian Supreme Court, Iryna Podnosova, her predecessor Vyacheslav Lebedev, Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, and FSB head Alexander Bortnikov.

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