war crimes

A Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a Ukrainian civilian was sentenced to life in prison. The sentencing Monday comes amid signs the Kremlin may hold trials of its own, particularly against the captured Ukrainian fighters who held out at Mariupol’s steel plant. Meanwhile, in a rare public expression of opposition to the war from the ranks of the...

The Ukrainian government says Russia has shelled more than 1,000 schools, destroying 95, while experts say such wide-scale wreckage can be used as evidence of Russian intent.

Ukraine says Russian forces are withdrawing from around Ukraine’s second-largest city after bombarding it for weeks. Officials say Moscow’s troops are pulling back from Kharkiv in the northeast while launching mortar, artillery and airstrikes in the eastern province of Donetsk. According to Ukraine’s defense minister, the country is “entering a new, long-term phase of the war” after more than 11...

A war crime is an action during an armed conflict that violates the international humanitarian rules of war, often referring to violence against civilians.

Survivors say Russian soldiers ordered residents of Yahidne into a school basement at gunpoint. Then, during weeks of stress and deprivation, some began to die.

The Pentagon is monitoring claims of Russian forces using chemical weapons in Mariupol, Ukraine, as fighting intensifies.

World leaders have accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of war crimes after hearing of a massacre and mass graves in Bucha, Ukraine. A war crime is a serious violation of international law and is punishable in international courts. NBCLX storyteller Clark Fouraker talked with Stanford University international law professor Allen Weiner to understand how people accused of war crimes can...

In an impassioned speech to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the removal of Russia as a permanent member over allegations of war crimes. “Remove Russia… so it can not block decisions about its own aggression, its own war.”

Video footage shows civilian bodies on the streets of Bucha, Ukraine.

Even as the conflict in Ukraine rages, a vast apparatus is being built to gather and preserve evidence of potential violations of international laws of war that were written after World War II.

Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities, striking at hospitals, ambulances, medics, patients and even newborns — with at least 34 assaults independently documented by The Associated Press

Beth Van Schaack, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, on Wednesday said, “Secretary Blinken issued a statement that based on information that is currently available, the US. government assesses that Russian forces are committing war crimes in Ukraine.”

The U.S. government has formally declared that members of the Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday.

President Joe Biden has flatly called Russia’s Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” for the unfolding onslaught in Ukraine, where hospitals and maternity wards have been bombed. What does it really mean to be a war criminal?

After delivering remarks at the White House on Wednesday, President Joe Biden was asked by reporters if he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.

The Russian Defense Ministry denied responsibility Thursday for striking a maternity and children’s hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol and claimed without evidence that the explosions that hit the building were staged to smear Russia.