Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said [8] May 4 that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine. Zelensky was addressing The Hague during a visit to the International Criminal Court (ICC [9]), calling for a new international tribunal [10] to prosecute the crime of aggression. Zelenski stressed [8]: "We all want to see Vladimir here, in the Hague... and I am sure we will see that happen when we win. And we will win." The ICC issued [11] an arrest warrant for Putin in March over the forced deportation of children from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. (Jurist [13])
Revelations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine continue to mount. Two former fighters for Russia's Wagner Group [14] mercenary outet told [15] Russian opposition media site Gulagu.net [16] last month how they had killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians, including children, as well as prisoners of war when fighting in Donetsk oblast. The two men, ex-prisoners who were "personally pardoned" by Putin in exchange for recruitment as mercenaries, admitted that they participated in a general massacre of the population of areas taken by Wagner in the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut [17]—"women, men, elderly, and children." (Kyiv Independent [18])
Putin on May 5 signed a decree under which Ukrainian citizens living in the Russian-annexed [19] oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia must either accept Russian citizenship or face forcible deportation by July 1, 2024. (DW [20])
