A court for Russian propagandists: how to prove their complicity in international crimes?

Russian propagandists are an unconditional evil; they are direct accomplices of Putin and his military machine. This statement raises no doubts among most Ukrainians, but when it comes to holding them criminally liable, many problems arise. I will try to explain in detail what exactly these problems are and how they can be solved.

Legalized Impunity

For several years in a row, Russia has been doing everything possible to destroy Ukrainians as a nation. Those whom it fails to destroy physically, Russia (тут би я обрала якусь одну пару Russia- it or it-it or Russians-they) want to kill morally. Propagandists who serve the Russian authorities take direct part in this. Although, in my opinion, the role of Russian "journalists" and "opinion leaders" is highly underestimated. Especially in countries that have not known war for more than 80 years. After all, there, in so-called "civilized" Europe, there is a very tolerant attitude toward everything that is voiced in the media — even if it includes calls for real crimes.

In international human rights law, which is based on the experience of peacetime, there are minimal restrictions on speech. If an expression is not hate speech or an incitement to violent actions, then criminal liability is not envisaged.

At the same time, international criminal law contains norms on punishment for direct and public incitement to genocide. Yet in court it is rather difficult to prove that a specific quotation is both direct and public, and an incitement to genocide. That is, we must prove that this is not just a vague suggestion or idea, but specifically a call clearly for genocide, and that it was made to a significant audience. If these two features are absent, then all spoken words may be assessed by the court simply as hate speech or calls for other crimes for which international criminal law does not provide punishment.

In order to carefully study and analyze such content, we at the Crimean Human Rights Group have created a special public database called "Exposing Russian Propagandists."

There are now 600 statements in this database, most of which are calls for crimes against Ukrainians. The criteria of "incitement to genocide" are met by perhaps 10% of them. It is still unclear whether the International Criminal Court investigates any of these statements, but it is already obvious that the concept of "freedom of speech" for Europeans still exists within a peacetime paradigm. And, unfortunately, no changes are expected yet.

This impunity is the main problem we face when investigating Russian media figures. At the Crimean Human Rights Group, we constantly look for new ways to hold Russians accountable for their calls to destroy Ukrainians and actions aimed at bringing this about. Recently, we tried yet another approach.

Recently, independent lawyer and expert Anna Mykytenko, together with CHRG analysts and colleagues from the NGO "Changing Together," and with the help of the analytical service "War of Words," sent a communication to the International Criminal Court that may help imprison certain Russian propagandists as accomplices to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Accomplices to War Crimes

As of early December 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russians on the territory of Ukraine. Among the crimes already being investigated by ICC prosecutors there are the crime of attacking civilian objects in Ukraine and the crime of causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects.

You may ask: how is this related to propagandists, since they do not take part in hostilities? Their complicity becomes visible when analyzing large amounts of data, because real cases of mass destruction of energy infrastructure are systematically accompanied by powerful "bombardment" from Russian media.

It happens like this: a few days before a massive strike on infrastructure, mainly energy-related, hosts and guests of state TV channels begin simultaneously calling for such bombardment and arguing why exactly Russia must do this.

After such preparation, the attack indeed takes place; its consequences are blackouts of electricity, heating, and water supply, which inflict enormous harm on the civilian population of Ukraine.

On the day of the attack and for several days after, Russian media actively justify it. The explanations vary. Mostly they label civilian objects as "legitimate military targets," produce fakes claiming that the destroyed facilities housed the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Sometimes they explain that energy infrastructure must be destroyed to stop the existence of Ukrainian media, which supposedly "zombify" Ukrainians and turn them into "Nazis."

During the study of such media content, we have found several dozen of these patterns.

For example, on November 10, 2022, TV host Volodymyr Solovyov said on air of "Russia 1":

"По этой причине разрушение гражданской инфраструктуры с самого начала должно было стать приоритетом всех тех действий, которые мы делали. Без этого абсолютно невозможно. Инфраструктура обеспечивающая способность украинского государства оказывать сопротивление… Вот то, что мешает вести боевые действия, то и должно быть уничтожено."

(Literal translation: "For this reason, the destruction of civilian infrastructure should from the very beginning was meant to be a priority of all the actions we carried out. Without this it is absolutely impossible. The infrastructure that ensures the ability of the Ukrainian state to resist… Whatever prevents the conduct of military actions — that is what must be destroyed.")

Less than two weeks after this and several similar calls, Russian missiles caused the shutdown of all nuclear reactors in in Ukriane; most thermal and hydroelectric power stations stopped generating electricity.

On that day, I was preparing for a scheduled surgery that doctors set for the morning of November 24. When I entered the surgical department of the Kyiv Regional Hospital, I learned that there was no electricity, no water, and no communication at all. Because of this, the hospital administration cancelled most of the scheduled surgeries. The doctors in surgery, in semi-darkness, were trying to save critically ill patients who needed surgery immediately. That day, such problems existed in most hospitals across the country because even backup power was not working.

During that blackout and for several days after, Russian media figures explained to their multimillion-strong audience why Russia had been destroying civilian objects and subjected millions of Ukrainian civilians to suffering.

For example, on December 12, 2022, Russian TV host Serhii Mikhieiev stated:

"На мой взгляд, решить эту проблему без ударов по инфраструктуре, энергетической, транспортной и прочей-прочей было нельзя. Вот до тех пор, пока они не поймут, что движение в НАТО и ЕС — это движение не к лучшей жизни, а к худшей, они вообще ничего делать не будут и понимать ничего не будут. Поэтому, к сожалению, необходимо делать так, чтобы, например, на Украине не осталось электричества, газа, воды, канализации и всего остального."

(Literal translation: "In my view, it was impossible to solve this problem without strikes on infrastructure — energy, transport, and all the rest. Until they understand that movement toward NATO and the EU is not movement toward a better life but a worse one, they will do nothing and understand nothing. Therefore, unfortunately, it is necessary to make it so that, for example, Ukraine has no electricity, gas, water, sewage, or anything else.")

A New Strategy for Accountabilit

After examining the calls we had found, lawyer Anna Mykytenko, specializing in international criminal and humanitarian law, proposed a new strategy for holding Russian media criminals accountable.

The result was a communication to the International Criminal Court in which we considered Russian media figures as accomplices to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Here is how the author of this communication, Anna Mykytenko, explains the advantages of such a strategy:

"Since 2014, Russian military and military-political leadership have been committing a series of crimes against humanity and war crimes, some of whose accomplices, in our view, are Russian media figures.

In particular, from the collected statements one can conclude that Russian politician Andrii Huruliov, TV hosts Volodymyr Solovyov and Serhii Mikhieiev incited or contributed to and/or assisted and incited the commission of the crime against humanity in the form of other inhumane acts, war crimes — the intentional directing of attacks against civilian objects and/or causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or civilian objects — through speeches and publications that called for attacking Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, encouraged such attacks, and provided justification for them. An investigation into these individuals may form part of the ongoing investigation and ensure accountability for those who call for or justify the commission of international crimes.

The common goal and general consequence: as noted above, the common goal of Russia's attacks is to force the Ukrainian population to submit surrender to Russian demands in military, political, economic, and cultural spheres. The cumulative impact of inhumane acts together with other crimes consists of large-scale human losses among the civilian population, destruction of civilian objects, forced displacement, including across the state border, and all-consuming fear."

The Inevitability of Punishment

Although the communication we sent to the ICC concerns only three propagandists, the argumentation provided in the document creates opportunities to make similar submissions regarding many other Russians who, through the media, call for the destruction of Ukraine's energy infrastructure and the commission of other international crimes.

We now have 170 calls to destroy Ukraine's civilian infrastructure in our database and dossiers on 50 individuals who publicly called for this. This database may be useful in continuing the investigation into the complicity of Russian media figures in committing such crimes.

We hope that together with Ukrainian and international law enforcement, we will do everything possible to ensure that all propagandists who call for or justify the destruction of energy infrastructure and other crimes against Ukrainians shall not remain unpunished.

The only way to prevent such crimes is to secure punishment for all who commit them. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly record every word they say, and we have constantly been doing this, although our resources are currently quite limited.

Therefore, I would like to address colleagues from media and human rights organizations: please pay more attention and look for resources for detailed documentation of such calls, and I ask active internet users to report such calls to the CHRG email: [email protected].