Putin's Legal Troubles Could Soon Become Drastically Worse

Russian President Vladimir Putin may face more war crime charges after a new report found that Russia prepared to steal food supplies from Ukraine months before it launched its full-scale invasion.

According to a new report by Global Rights Compliance (GRC), an international human rights law firm, Russia's defense contractor began buying trucks to transport grain and three 170-meter (558-foot) bulk carrier cargo ships as early as December 2021. Less than a week after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, its military began commandeering Ukrainian farms.

GRC's investigation covered up to August 2023. Russia has not captured any more grain-rich territory since then, but it still has power over the Crimean Peninsula, which is a main port for grain to be transferred to Russia and other countries.

In October, the Ukrainian government said that since July, Russia destroyed nearly 300,000 metric tons (661,386,787 pounds) of grain in attacks on Ukraine's port facilities and ships.

At the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia is "weaponizing" everything from food to abducted children.

"When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there," Zelensky said. "The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into weapons against you—against the international rules-based order."

Putin already has an arrest warrant against him for war crimes. In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused Putin of the unlawful deportation of children and the unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow, however, has denied the ICC's allegations and called the warrant for the Russian leader's arrest "outrageous."

The evidence collected by GRC will be provided to the ICC and the GRC hopes Putin will be prosecuted for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.

Catriona Murdoch, head of the Starvation Mobile Justice Team at GRC and co-author of the report told Newsweek: "GRC has no information as to the likelihood of the ICC adding the potential crimes relating to this unlawful pillage and seizure to a forthcoming indictment or amending the existing arrest warrant to include them. Notwithstanding that, we would encourage the ICC to actively consider the scale of these crimes in any current investigations."

However, Murdoch said that Putin's alleged crimes regarding grain documented by GRC may hold the same "criminal responsibility" as his current arrest warrant, which would be "(i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others; and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility."

Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian government via email and the Russian government via online form for comment.

Murdoch told The Independent that it is "highly likely" that Russia will be found guilty.

"Russia not only deployed a multi-pronged approach by besieging civilian populations, destroying critical infrastructure, but it also pre-planned the seizure and pillage of agricultural commodities in an insidious plan," Murdoch said. "Moscow has sparked a global food crisis and attacked Ukraine's agriculture sector as a warfare tactic."

Update 11/22/23, 10:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Catriona Murdoch.

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