Recent Infrastructure Attacks in Ukraine: Is Russia responsible for war crimes?
Power blackouts implications
Numerous Russian air strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have resulted in the involuntary adoption of emergency power cuts all over the country, including the capital. The intensity of the attacks severely affects the living standards of Ukrainians’ everyday life in several ways.
One of the chief concerns is related to heating networks. Given that the temperatures in Ukraine currently are below zero, it poses a far-reaching threat to the population’s health.The frequency and duration of such long-lasting blackouts increase the risk of hypothermia even for those indoors if the heating is cut off. Other conditions likely to occur are frostbite and cardiac arrest.
Communication infrastructure has also recently suffered from severe disruptions, in particular the quality of mobile phone connections. The transportation system has undergone several adjustments as well. The urban authorities have substantially reduced the number of trams and trolleybuses on routes to save power.
Moreover, there has been an increase in the reported number of road accidents. More than half of those happened in the dark. In Kyiv, the country’s capital, the number of people killed in road accidents during power outages upsurged sixfold. In response, the police have increased the number of traffic controllers at intersections.
Targeted infrastructure bombing causes transportation disruption, challenges industrial production, and spreads despair among the population. At the end of November 2022, the power deficit was 30% and remains significantly high, according to the most recent data from “Ukrenergo”.
War crimes or not?
Recent Russian infrastructure attacks are considered a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law, i.e. of Article 48 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which sets an obligation for the conflicting parties to distinguish between civilian objects and military objectives. Targeting of energy facilities falls under direct attacks against civilian objects. Some of the targeted infrastructure objects are vital for the survival of the civilian population.
The targeted strikes also constitute a violation of Article 8 of the Rome Statute, where “intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives” constitute a war crime. However, various jurisprudent theories need to be considered before making an informed decision regarding the legality of such attacks. Both principles of distinction and proportionality are crucial in the discussion on recent infrastructure attacks in Ukraine constituting war crimes.
Some scholars argue that energy infrastructure targets in Ukraine serve dual purposes. By dual-use objects, one understands objects that can be used by the military and civilians. However, there is no official intermediate legal category to identify such targets. The principle of distinction plays an essential role here. Additionally, Ukraine has so far fortified a significant proportion of civilian areas across the country since the war outbreak. Consequently turning them into potential military targets for Russian attackers.
Although an object might be considered a military object on legal grounds, any attack must be proportional, i.e. expected not to cause incidental loss of civilian life, which would be excessive concerning the military advantage anticipated. Not only do such losses include the number of civilians killed in the attacks, but also the so-called reverberating effects. Such implications are considered a product thereof or losses that the community will bear because of the attacks themselves. Hence, the intentional destruction of civilian infrastructure usually leads to a disruption of essential services and, therefore, further civilian losses. The Ukrainian case serves as a vivid example of this principle. The matters of causing harm to civilians and the possible future implications of the attacks are currently under debate among legal scholars.
To recapitulate, if assessed from a strictly legal perspective, Russian power infrastructure attacks, even if in many cases violate war law, require in-depth analysis to conclude whether all the constituents of a war crime were fulfilled. There are nevertheless no misgivings about Russia being an aggressor in this war, and there is no debate about the Ukrainian population suffering due to the attacks of various destructive types that have been continuing for ten months already.
Original Photo Credits: Maksym Kozlenko - Edited by GorStra