Back in December, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued the 2017 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, which contained a section in response to two declarations filed by Ukraine (2014, 2015). The office – which continues its preliminary investigation of “alleged crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine,” specifically, violent events on the Maidan, the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s war in the Donbas – cited its own earlier assessment that the situation on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula is “an ongoing state of occupation” by the Russian Federation.
The ICC’s 2017 report noted: “On 27 February 2014, armed and mostly uniformed individuals wearing no identifying insignia seized control of government buildings in Symferopol, including the Crimean Parliament building. The Russian Federation later acknowledged that its military personnel had been involved in taking control of the Crimean peninsula. The incorporation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol into the Russian Federation was announced on 18 March 2014, following a referendum held two days earlier that was declared invalid by the interim Ukrainian government and by a majority of states of the U.N. General Assembly.”
Four years later, the occupation continues. Furthermore, on March 18, Russia is brazenly holding its presidential election on the date of Crimea’s “reunification” with Russia; it’s also conducting those elections on occupied Ukrainian territory, despite the vehement protests of Ukraine. President Petro Poroshenko called on the European Union to impose sanctions against “those who organized Russian presidential elections events on a Ukrainian territory” and said Vladimir Putin’s campaign stop in Crimea was “an extremely dangerous provocation.”
In a statement issued on March 14 by the State Department (see page 1), the U.S. commented: “In his campaign rally in Crimea today, President Putin reiterated Russia’s false claims to Ukrainian territory in another open admission that the Russian government disdains the international order and disrespects the territorial integrity of sovereign nations.” The U.S. reaffirmed its stand: “Crimea is part of Ukraine and our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine.”
But what is sorely needed is much more than strong words, and not just from the U.S. Frankly, Russia has not been made to pay the price for its aggression against Ukraine or against the Western world, the target of an ongoing hybrid war that is being escalated daily.
PS: There was some good news on March 15, as our newspaper was being prepared to go to press. First, the leaders of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement condemning the March 4 attack with a military-grade nerve agent on Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, saying “it was highly likely that Russia was responsible.” It was a welcome sign of Western solidarity and resolve. Now we await some sort of significant coordinated action against the Putin regime. Shortly thereafter, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on five Russian entities and 19 individuals for interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and a series of cyberattacks since 2016. “The administration is confronting and countering malign Russian cyberactivity, including their attempted interference in U.S. elections, destructive cyberattacks and intrusions targeting critical infrastructure,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. A release from the Treasury Department also referenced Russia’s “ongoing efforts to destabilize Ukraine, occupy Crimea, meddle in elections, as well as …endemic corruption and human rights abuses.” CNN reported that administration officials insisted the new measures weren’t the end of their efforts to punish Russia.