Andriy Kostin has been serving as Ukraines Prosecutor General since July 2022. At that time, Ukrainian government and law enforcement officials were being flooded with an unprecedented amount of images, videos, and other data from Ukrainian civilians documenting alleged war crimes and human-rights violations committed by Russian troops.
Kostins office is operating a database to collect all of this information, and has set up websites and chatbots to help Ukrainians categorize and submit digital evidence. Now, after 20 months of war, TIME spoke to Kostin in Kyiv about how his office is developing new ways to analyze evidence to build and prosecute war-crimes cases with the help of technology companies and international partners.
Q: When it comes to prosecuting war crimes in this conflict, theres an overwhelming amount of video and photo evidence being submitted in real time, as well as corroborating data from digital sources, satellite images, cell phone providers. In what ways does this fit into the traditional framework used to prosecute war crimes, and how are you doing things differently?
A: We're doing something which has not been done before. I think the most important challenge for us is to ensure comprehensive accountability. First we are looking at the old elements [and lessons] of the old types of war crimes. In all previous wars and conflicts, everyone was concentrated on crimes against the physical security of peoplepeople who were killed, wounded, assaulted, and humiliated. They were also setting standards which we now use as precedent in our cases. For example when it comes to conflict-related sexual violencethe international community has invested a lot of resources into the proper investigation of these types of crimes and prepared a lot of solutions focusing on a victim or survivor-centered approach.
Read More: How Ukraine Is Crowdsourcing Digital Evidence of War Crimes
These are now included in our own strategic documents and all of our investigators and prosecutors use them. Now, in this conflict, were also expanding and looking at a wider range of war crimes.
Q: What kind of war crimes are you focusing on that have never been prosecuted before?
For instance, crimes against the environment [including damage to nuclear facilities, and environmental destruction and pollution that will negatively impact Ukrainians health for generations.] The discussion on the international level is much more active now than it even was one year ago, since we started to allocate resources to investigate environmental crimes. But it's important, because these crimes are and will be committed globally. And those who will commit them in other parts of the world will see that there are now the tools and standards to investigate and prosecute them, because were creating strategic documents.
We are also now investigating or prosecuting cyber attacks as war crimes, which are very difficult to investigate. Its never been done before. But were doing it with the help of our partners, namely Palantir and Microsoft, who are ready to help us because they also understand that in looking deeply into such situations and investigating them as war crimes, we can highlight them to such an extent that many others will look very carefully [before committing them]. This is a terrorist behavior. So it's very important that we cover these new avenues.
Q: How are you using technology and new digital tools to collect and analyze evidence?
In order to build these cases, we often have to use evidence that is not enough at the first glance. If a witness says something happened to them, we need to identify the perpetrator, which is the most challenging task in the daily work of our prosecutors, and for that we will use all elements of new technologies which often is the only useful tool we have.
For instance, there were civilians who were attacked by Russian forces while trying to evacuate, and survivors went to investigators. They could identify the specific place where it happened. When the territory was liberated, we were able to find the documents of the [Russian] units, which had birthdays and some other data. Then we used [open-source intelligence] instruments to analyze their social networks with the help of NGOs and civil-society organizations. I have a specific platform in my office, the International Council of Experts, where more than 45 NGOs are helping us on war crimes accountability. So we were able to identify most of them. And when we showed these to the survivors, who had interacted with the Russian [troops], they would confirm it: I saw this face.
Read More: The Crime Scene Left Behind at a Summer Camp in Bucha.
Some of these cases are already in court in Kyiv [where the International Criminal Court has opened an office]. Weve used Palantir as a unique instrument to [analyze] all the data, and Microsoft for voice recognition in cases where perpetrators were calling for genocide and an aggressive war. All of this helps so much because these are unique tools to analyze voices and faces to build the cases. And we are also [getting close] to using more artificial intelligence to go over the hundreds of terabytes of photo, video, voice, etc.
Q: How are you collecting the evidence you need from the more than six million Ukrainian refugees abroad, and millions more displaced civilians inside the country? How are international partners helping with this?
Creating these technological tools is not just about [identifying perpetrators] but also about not losing any evidence that can be used to build the case. Legal interaction between different jurisdictions is always a challenge. There may be evidence in a regional office, or coming from a temporarily displaced person in Ukraine, and other pieces of evidence that may appear somewhere in Poland or in Germany where someone came to the police. If we put together all three about the same event, they will complement each other and complete this puzzle.
There are also other new tools, like the Core International Crimes Evidence Database (CICED). Its a new database, absolutely secured, where you can include information for joint investigations. We have thousands and thousands of Ukrainians [submitting reports] in different countries. It took more than one year to make it happen, and it was very important that the European Union [Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation] really invested in it. Now, if one person in Germany or Poland or the Czech Republic comes to a police officer and tells them something that happened in Bucha, they will keep it carefully in the file. This database will be fully operational in November.
Q: Given the vast amount of digital evidence, and the fact that its being submitted in real time as the war is ongoing, can the international justice system keep up?
The judicial process in some occasions needs to be more rapid, because justice can be denied when it is delayed. We are also in constant dialogue with Ukrainian courts [to prioritize war-crime cases]. For many of our victims and survivors, it's important to even have these [prosecuted] in absentia, so they know that we did everything possible to restore their dignity.
We will use every legal avenue, and we will use every technology to come up with a way.
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How Ukraine is Pioneering New Ways to Prosecute War Crimes - TIME
Recent comments by Ukraines commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, claiming that the war with Russia has reached a stalemate, have sparked fresh calls for a negotiated settlement. While this desire to end the bloodshed in Ukraine is perfectly understandable, anyone advocating a peace deal with Vladimir Putin must first reckon with the genocidal reality of Russias invasion. Putin himself has repeatedly made clear that he denies Ukraines right to exist and is determined to extinguish Ukrainian statehood. Unless he is defeated, any compromise agreement would merely set the stage for the next phase in Russias campaign to wipe Ukraine off the map.
Putins obsession with Ukraine and his rejection of the countrys historical legitimacy were on full display recently during a November 3 address to Russias Public Chamber. There was no Ukraine in the Russian Empire, he declared. The Russian dictator went on to repeat many of his most notorious historical distortions, including the claim that Ukraine had been artificially created by Vladimir Lenin and the early Soviet authorities at the expense of southern Russian lands.
Such arguments are not new. Indeed, Putin has been weaponizing history to delegitimize independent Ukraine for nearly two decades, with this trend escalating dramatically during the build-up to the current full-scale invasion. In July 2021, Putin published a 6,000-word essay attacking Ukraine as an artificial state and arguing that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (one people). This chilling treatise was widely circulated throughout the Russian military and has since come to be viewed as the ideological basis for the invasion of Ukraine.
Months after the outbreak of hostilities, Putin compared his invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great while claiming that he was returning Russian lands. During subsequent ceremonials marking the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, he declared these regions would be part of Russia forever. On the first anniversary of the invasion, Putin told crowds in Moscow that Russia was fighting for its historical lands in Ukraine.
Putins historical illiteracy and duplicity were once again on display in spring 2023 when he publicly inspected a seventeenth century French map depicting the lands of Eastern Europe including todays Ukraine. The Russian dictator pointed to the map as supposed proof that no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind, despite the fact that Ukraine was clearly indicated by name on the map.
If he had been paying more attention, Putin would have noticed that the map did not contain any references to the Russian Empire, which was at the time known as Muscovy. Nor did it feature his own hometown, Saint Petersburg, which was not founded until the beginning of the eighteenth century. In contrast, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is thought to date back over 1500 years, making it far older than Russias leading cities.
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Putin is not the first Russian ruler to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation. On the contrary, Ukraine denial has been a central pillar of Russian imperial policy for centuries. The Russian Empire consistently refused to acknowledge Ukraine precisely because the repression of Ukrainian national identity was regarded as essential for the survival of the Czarist regime. Instead, Ukrainians were labelled as Little Russians by the Czarist authorities, who banned the Ukrainian language while declaring, a separate Little Russian language never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.
Putins insistence on Ukraines alleged lack of legitimacy reflects Russias deep insecurity about its own past. Generations of Russians have traced their national story back to Ukraine and the Kyivan Rus state of medieval Europe. However, many historians regard todays Russia as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which first rose to regional prominence as a vassal state of the Mongol Empire long after the decline and fall of the Kyivan Rus.
Despite these tenuous ties to the Kyivan Rus era, Russian rulers since the seventeenth century have laid claim to Kyivs historical legacy in order to justify the colonization of Ukraine and strengthen their European credentials. Putin has continued this tradition, unveiling a huge monument to tenth century Kyivan Rus ruler Prince Volodymyr the Great in central Moscow in 2016, despite the fact that the Russian capital city was not founded until more than a century after Volodymyrs death.
Following the 1991 collapse of the USSR, growing international awareness of Ukrainian history has raised awkward questions about many deeply engrained aspects of Russias national narrative dating back to the Czarist and Soviet eras. This helps to explain why Putin and other members of the Russian establishment regard the consolidation of Ukrainian statehood as an existential threat to their own authoritarian empire. Independent Ukraines embrace of European democratic values has only served to heighten this sense of danger within the Russian elite.
Putin has sought to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a crusade for historical justice and the return of ancestral Russian lands. In reality, it is an old-fashioned colonial war that echoes the worst excesses of European imperialism. His mythologized version of Russian history is utterly incompatible with the notion of a separate Ukrainian nation; he is therefore obliged to deny its existence entirely.
This denial is now fueling a genocide in the heart of Europe. Russian troops have already killed thousands of Ukrainians and have deported millions more. Throughout the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, the Russian occupation authorities are openly engaged in the methodical eradication of Ukrainian identity and the forced russification of the remaining population.
In such circumstances, international calls for a compromise peace are deeply disingenuous. It should be crystal clear to all objective observers that unless Ukraine can achieve a decisive victory, any pause in hostilities would merely provide the Kremlin with breathing space to rearm and regroup before renewing hostilities. Putin has weaponized history to justify the destruction of a neighboring state that threatens his dreams of a new Russian Empire. Until this imperial ideology is decisively defeated, the war will continue.
Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He is the winner of the 2022 Peterson Literary Prize for the book Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War: Autocracy-Orthodoxy-Nationality.
The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. October 24, 2023. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS)
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Peace is impossible while Vladimir Putin denies Ukraine's right to exist - Atlantic Council
Of the approximately one zillion lies that have come out of Representative George Santoss mouth, one of the biggest and most offensive is the lie about his maternal grandparents being Ukrainian Jews who were forced to flee Europe during the Holocaust. In 2021, the then congressional candidate claimed in acampaign videothat his grandparents survived the Holocaust. Several months later, he told the Jewish News Syndicate: Im very proud of my grandparents story, whichhe claimedinvolved fleeing Hitler. In seeming anticipation of getting called out for this specific lie, hetoldFox News Digital last February: For a lot of people who are descendants of World War II refugees or survivors of the Holocaust, a lot of names and paperwork were changed in name of survival.
But, of course, like so many lies he was later caught tellingfrom being a star volleyball player, to having employees who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting, to his mother being in the South Tower on 9/11these claims about his grandparents and the Holocaust do not actually appear to be true. Multiple genealogy recordsindicatehis grandparents were born in Brazil and, according to one genealogist who spoke to CNN, Theres no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way.
Asked about what many would consider an appalling lie during an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday, the congressman from New York not only doubled down on it, but insisted that he is close to obtaining proofwhich hed have already if not for that pesky war in Ukraine. Thats what I spent the last 10 months doing, putting together, Santos told reporter Manu Raju of the alleged evidence showing his grandparents really did flee the Holocaust. But unfortunately, Ukraine is in the middle of a freaking war, and my grandfather comes from Ukraine. So this is the biggest lift that I have to do my entire life. But thats something Im going to prove before I die.
Elsewhere in the interview, Santos claimed that he has always made very clear that he comes from a Jewish family but is personally Catholic, whichit may or may not surprise you to hearis also not true. On the campaign trail he described himself as a proud American Jew. (And then later told the New York Post he only said he was Jew-ish.)
Last month, Santos pleadednot guiltyto 23 criminal counts, including conspiracy, identity theft, and credit card fraud. Several weeks before that, he claimed to New York Times reporter Grace Ashford that his niece had been kidnapped, likely in retaliation for his public comments about the Chinese Communist Party. A high-ranking member of law enforcement subsequently told Ashford that the matter had been looked intoand that there was no evidence of any kidnapping, period, or, really, any connection to the Chinese Communist Party. We found nothing at all to suggest its true, the official said. Id lean into, he made it up.
Johnson says theres nothing strange about not disclosing a bank account on any of his financial disclosures going back to 2016
The latest developments from the Ukraine war.
Now is not the time for elections, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, trying to put to rest a growing debate amid Russia's grinding invasion.
"Now is the time for defence, for battle, on which the fate of the state and people depends, and not for farce, which only Russia expects from Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in a speech. "I think this is not the time for elections.
We must come together, not divide ourselves, not disperse ourselves in quarrels or other priorities, he added.
On Friday, Ukrainian foreign ministerDmytro Kuleba said the Ukrainian president was "weighing the pros and cons" of holding elections.
If Russia had not invaded in February 2022, legislative elections would have taken place this October, and presidential elections in March 2024.The introduction of martial law has suspended these votes.
However, Kyiv now finds itself in a dilemma.Western allies, notably the US, are pressing Ukraine to hold elections, with some commentators arguing they could burnish Ukraine's democratic credentials in contrast with an increasingly authoritarian Russian state.
Yet, there are many obstacles. Nearly 20% of Ukraine is occupied by Russia, millions of Ukrainians have fled the country, soldiers on the frontline would struggle to vote, and any election would face critical security risks.
We all understand that today, in times of war, when the challenges are numerous, it is absolutely irresponsible to introduce the subject of elections in society, Zelenskyy insisted.
The notorious leader of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov has said a "large group" of former Wagner mercenaries are training his AKHMAT special forces.
AKHMAT, widely considered Kadyrov's private army, would "be joined by fighters who have excellent combat experience and have proven themselves as brave and efficient warriors," claimedthe Putin-backed warlord.
"I am confident that in the upcoming battles they will fully live up to their reputation."
Wagner mercenaries have played a key role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, especially the months-long bloody battle for Bakhmut.
However, since the group's leaderYevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash after leading a brief mutiny against Moscow in June, the future of the mercenary group has been unclear.
Writing on Telegram,Kadyrov said that before hisAKHMAT force carried out missions, they needed to "undergo coordination" to "significantly increase their effectiveness" on the frontline.
He said "tactical shooting courses, field medicine, training for snipers, machine gunners, sappers, and artillerymen" were part of an "extensive training programme".
Chechens are fighting on both sides in Ukraine. Those under Kadyrov have reportedly been used to discipline and reportedly even execute dissenting Russian soldiers, as well as intimidate civilians in Ukraine.
However, analyst Harold Chambers previously told Euronews they were "better at social media than fighting", questioning their real combat effectiveness beyond TikTok and Instagram footage.
Read more on this story here.
NATO member states on Tuesday condemned Russia's decision to formally withdraw from the landmark treaty limiting conventional military forces in Europe.
Russia first decided to suspend its participation in the 1992 treaty on conventional weapons in Europe in 2007,but Moscow only announced its formal withdrawal from the treaty this Monday.
Moscow's war against Ukraine has dealt a fatal blow to the multi-treaty arms control regime that has helped maintain the balance of power in Europe for decades.
The NATO allies announced in a communiqu that they "condemn Russia's decision to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and its war of aggression against Ukraine, which is contrary to the objectives of the Treaty".
The membership also announced their intention to "suspend [Russia's] participation in the CFE Treaty for as long as necessary", the statement added.
For its part, the US said that it would be "unacceptable" for it and the NATO allies to remain committed to a treaty abandoned by Russia.
"The suspension of CFE obligations will strengthen the Alliance's defence and deterrence capability by removing restrictions that impact our plans, deployments and exercises", said US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The CFE treaty imposed for the first time legal and verifiable limits on the forces of the 30 countries that signed the agreement. It was seen as the cornerstone of the security arrangements agreed at the end of the Cold War.
According to NATO, it led to the destruction of some 100,000 items of military equipment, including tanks, artillery and attack helicopters.
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Zelenskyy rules out elections, Wagner training Chechen special forces - Euronews