The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and War Crimes Challenges for Documentation and International Prosecution

Introduction: The Rocky Road to Justice: Efforts to Document and Prosecute Crimes in Ukraine from a Historical and Legal Perspective
Patrycja Grzebyk and Dominika Uczkiewicz

Part 1: The Soviet Legacy and Ruskii Mir

1. War Crimes in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine:The Soviet Legacy and the Wellsprings of Moscow’s Disregard of International Humanitarian Law
Mark Kramer

2. Historical Soviet and Contemporary Russian Criminal Acts Against Ukrainians Under the UN Genocide Convention of 1948: A Comparative Analysis
Tomasz Lachowski

3. The Crime of Genocide: Historical Aspects, Political Discussions and Memory Laws in Ukraine
Yurii Kaparulin

4. In the Span of a Hybrid War: Engaging Post-Truth in Shadowing Russian War Crimes
Kseniya Yurtayeva

5. A Nuremberg for Communism?: Unified Germany, International Law, and the Idea of a Tribunal for Stalinist/Soviet Crime
Annette Weinke

6. Putin’s Youth and the TikTok War: Creating the Militarized Self in Russian Adolescents
Ian Garner

Part 2: Crimes in the Ukraine War and Their Documentation

7. Russia’s War Crimes in Ukraine as a Tool of War
Agnieszka Bieńczyk-Missala

8. Digital Evidence in Investigations Concerning Russian Crimes in Ukraine
Hanna Kuczyńska

9. Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Documenting the War: Recording Testimonies of Ukrainian Witnesses After 24 February 2022
Anna Wylegała

10. The Center for Civil Liberties: Chronicler of Crimes Committed After Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Roman Nekoliak

11. Witnesses to the War: The Raphael Lemkin Center for Documenting Russian Crimes in Ukraine as a Case Study
Aleksandra Konopka and Krystian Wiciarz

12. Precedents for Ukraine: Experiences of the UNWCC of Documenting War Crimes
Dan Plesch, Jacob Thaler, and Dominika Uczkiewicz

Part 3: Prosecution of Crimes Committed in the War in Ukraine

13. Ensuring Fairness of War Crimes Trials in Ukraine
Gaiane Nuridzhanian

14. Prosecuting International Crimes in Ukraine: The Role of Ukrainian Domestic Courts
Oktawian Kuc

15. Polish Involvement in Prosecuting International Crimes Committed in Ukraine
Bartłomiej Krzan

16. Prosecuting War Crimes in Ukraine: The German Contribution
Stefanie Bock

17. The Ukrainian Struggle for Internationalization of the Problem of Punishment of the Crime of Aggression
Anton Korynevych

18. Accountability for Russian Imperialism in the Global East: The Special Tribunal for Aggression from a Post-Colonial Eastern European Perspective
Patryk I. Labuda

19. Ukraine and the Investigation of Systemic War Crimes: Learning from the UK's Investigative Failures in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
Andrew Williams

Biography

Patrycja Grzebyk is Associate Professor at the University of Warsaw and a specialist in public international law. She is the author of Criminal Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression (2013) and Human and Non-Human Targets in Armed Conflicts (2022).

Dominika Uczkiewicz is a lawyer, historian, and Assistant Professor at the Centre for Totalitarian Studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. Her recent publications include Polish and German Perspectives on Transitional Justice: World War Two and its Aftermath (2021; co-edited with Wolfgang Form).

'This sober, somber collection from editors Grzebyk (Univ. of Warsaw, Poland) and Uczkiewicz (Pilecki Institute, Poland) embodies two tragic realities: Russia’s criminal war against Ukraine and the dim prospects for prosecuting Russia's crimes, including genocide and ecocide, beyond the lowest-level perpetrators. One great strength here is the editors' and contributors' determination to proceed as if indictments, trials, and verdicts really will occur, thereby helping make them more likely. Most contributors are Polish and Ukrainian legal scholars, superbly representing multiple disciplines. [...] The colossal, costly, essential task of sorting through countless videos, documents, and witness testimonies illustrates how this unnecessary conflict is a ramifying tragedy. Amid the dense legal verbiage stands Poland’s commitment to Ukraine—an indelible statement of humanitarianism, and a path toward peace with justice.'

Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

T. P. Johnson, University of Massachusetts, Boston, CHOICE October 2025