Human Rights NGOs urge Austria to investigate sexual crimes by ...

The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), an organisation led by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and Centre for the Enforcement of Human Rights International (CEHRI), a non-profit organisation that advocates for liability for international crimes, filed a case in Austria calling for investigations into sexual violence and murder in Ukraine by Russian soldiers on Monday.

The organisations are representing two women who were raped by Russian soldiers at the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine War in 2022 and have put forward evidence against the two soldiers and seven other men who are commanders. According to the organisations, one of the women’s husbands had been shot and killed when he tried to intervene. The CFJ said, “The crimes were committed as part of widespread and systematic pattern of human rights violations against the civilian population on the territories occupied by Russian forces, extensively documented by the UN bodies and other organizations”. 

The evidence consists of investigations within Ukraine, such as visiting the villages where the crimes occurred, interviewing witnesses and Ukrainian law enforcement, and observing evidence left behind by the soldiers when the Kyiv region was liberated, which allowed the identification of the Russian soldiers. The organisations’ investigation was aided by open-source intelligence that analysed Russian military communication networks and their movement into Ukraine, satellite imagery and reported incidences of human rights violations to establish patterns of abuse.

The case has been shared with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General. The case has been filed in Austria under universal jurisdiction, allowing states to prosecute serious international crimes regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of those involved.

Previously, the CFJ filed cases in 2022 with German federal prosecutors, urgently requesting an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine by Russia. Both organisations aid victims of human rights violations, which include war crimes and acts of sexual violence.

The UN Commission of Ukraine found that in 2023, women 15 to 83 years old were victims of rape and sexual violence in relation to the Russo-Ukraine war and as of 2024, Ukrainian prosecutors reported 298 cases of sexual violence and rape, out of which 109 victims were men and 189 were women, including minors.