THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Sergei Shoigu, the former Russian defense minister, and leading Russian general Valery Gerasimov on Tuesday for alleged crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Shoigu was removed from his post of defense minister last month, and appointed Secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, in the most significant changes Russian President Vladimir Putin made to his military command since the start of the war in 2022.
The Hague-based court said Shoigu and Gerasimov were suspected of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity for directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects in Ukraine.
Judges had found there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the two suspects bear responsibility for missile strikes carried out by the Russian armed forces against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March 2023,” the ICC said in a press release.
Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, has repeatedly said Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is a legitimate military target and denies targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine is also not a member, but has granted the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed on its territory.
The warrants for Shoigu and Gerasimov bring the total of arrest warrants issued against senior Russian suspects since the beginning of the invasion to eight. These include Putin, suspected of a war crime over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The tribunal has no police force of its own and relies on member states to make arrests.
During the timeframe mentioned in the latest warrants Russia is suspected of having carried out strikes against numerous electric power plants and sub-stations all over Ukraine.
According to ICC judges, there were reasonable ground to believe the strikes targeted mostly civilian objects “and for those installations that may have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time, the expected incidental civilian harm and damage would have been clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage,” making the attacks war crimes
International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russia’s Shoigu and Gerasimov
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International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russia’s Shoigu and Gerasimov
- The Hague-based court said Shoigu and Gerasimov were suspected of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity
Long truck lines at Colombia-Ecuador border as tariffs loom
- Colombia responded with a matching tariff and said it was suspending energy sales to Ecuador
- The maneuvers have concerned those who haul goods across the border
IPIALES, Colombia: Hundreds of truck drivers waited for hours in miles-long lines to cross the border between Colombia and Ecuador as reciprocal tariffs loomed.
Ecuador this month said it would impose 30 percent tariffs on dozens of products from Colombia, with Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa accusing his neighbor of not doing enough to combat drug trafficking along their shared border.
Colombia responded with a matching tariff and said it was suspending energy sales to Ecuador. The reciprocal tariffs are set to take effect February 1.
The maneuvers have concerned those who haul goods across the border, and truckers attempting to enter Ecuador with Colombian goods on Friday formed long lines stretching to the southern Colombia border city of Ipiales.
The truckers feel “uncertainty because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Alvaro Jaramillo, a Colombian truck driver with 18 years of experience, told AFP.
Jaramillo arrived at the border on the Pan-American Highway about noon and by 7 p.m. local time (0000 GMT) had still not reached the customs post.
Trade between the two countries is of vital importance to his family and “all the transporters” in the area, he said.
He hopes the situation will be resolved through dialogue and that the two countries can begin working together.
But the dispute is intensifying.
Ecuador this week increased the tariff for transporting Colombian crude oil through its pipeline by 900 percent after Colombia last week suspended energy sales.
The Ecuadoran Foreign Ministry has said that there is “dialogue” between the two nations, but the country’s foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, said on Friday that there is still no agreement on a tariff deal.
Aerial footage captured by AFP on Friday showed hundreds of trucks waiting to cross the Rumichaca International Bridge separating the two countries.
“The traffic increased dramatically” this week, said truck driver Alexander Revelo, estimating it is up about four times more than average.
The two countries share a border of approximately 600 km (370 miles), where Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers operate.
Ecuador has the highest homicide rate in Latin America, with a high of 52 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Most of it passes through Ecuador before being transported by sea, primarily to the United States and Europe.
Noboa has defended the tariffs as compensation for the money invested in border security.
