The Council on Foreign Relations has published a legal analysis examining one of the defining questions of the war in Ukraine: can Russia actually be held accountable for the war crimes allegedly committed by its forces? The answer, the analysis suggests, is more complicated than the mounting evidence of atrocities might imply.

The question is no longer academic. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, investigators from the United Nations, national prosecutorial authorities, and non-governmental organizations have documented what they describe as widespread violations of international humanitarian law. Allegations range from deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure to torture, summary executions, and the forcible transfer of children. Ukraine's prosecutor general has opened thousands of criminal proceedings. Yet the gap between documented wrongdoing and actual adjudication remains wide, and the CFR analysis confronts that gap directly.

The ICC pathway

At the center of any accountability effort sits the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Ukraine, while not a party to the Rome Statute at the outset of the conflict, accepted the court's jurisdiction over crimes committed on its territory, and the ICC opened an investigation in March 2022 following a referral by a large group of states parties. The court's prosecutor has visited Ukraine, and ICC judges have issued arrest warrants connected to the conduct of Russian forces.

But the ICC route carries structural limits. The court can prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine. It cannot prosecute the crime of aggression — the act of invading itself — because Russia is not a Rome Statute party and has not accepted that jurisdiction. For many jurists, aggression is the parent crime from which all others flow, and its exclusion from the ICC's reach leaves a central piece of the accountability puzzle unsolved.

The practical obstacles are equally stark. Russia does not extradite its nationals. Any ICC defendant must first be in custody, which historically requires either arrest on the territory of a cooperating state or a change of government. Prosecutions in absentia are not available before the ICC. That means indictments may stand for years before trial, however strong the underlying evidence.

The hybrid tribunal debate

To close the aggression gap, Ukraine and a coalition of allied states have pursued a separate vehicle: a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Proposals under discussion include a hybrid model — a treaty-based court that could sit in The Hague, draw on international judges, and exercise jurisdiction over the leadership crime that the ICC cannot reach. The CFR analysis situates this debate at the heart of the accountability question, noting that prosecutors and foreign ministries remain divided over the precise design, immunity questions for sitting senior officials, and the tribunal's relationship to existing institutions.

There are also national courts. Several European states have opened structural investigations into war crimes in Ukraine under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Germany, in particular, has a track record of prosecuting international crimes committed abroad, including in earlier Syria-related cases. These proceedings can move faster than international mechanisms, but they typically reach lower-level perpetrators rather than the political and military leadership.

What practitioners should watch

For legal advisers, investigators, and counsel representing states or victims' organizations, the analysis points to a multi-track reality. Evidence preservation is now: each mass grave, each piece of forensic material, each witness account must be gathered to litigable standards, because the courtroom may be years away. Jurisdictional questions — which forum, which crime, which defendant — will determine where that evidence lands. Sanctions and asset freezes intersect with reparations claims, and Ukraine has already secured favorable rulings at the International Court of Justice on treaty interpretation, adding state-level proceedings to the mix.

The Council on Foreign Relations does not predict a single verdict. Its contribution is to frame the issue candidly: accountability for Russia is legally possible through several parallel channels, but each channel carries distinct jurisdictional, political, and practical constraints. Whether those constraints ultimately yield justice — or merely an archive of unresolved proof — is the question the analysis leaves open, and one that courts, prosecutors, and diplomats will answer only over the course of a generation.