Can all Russians be held responsible for the war in Ukraine? A heated online debate runs up against international law’s principle of individual responsibility.

A podcast appearance by sociologist Konstantin Gaaze arguing that Russians bear collective responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine set off online debate, running headlong into the Rome Statute's principle that civilians cannot be criminally punished for a war they didn't personally wage or plan. The ICC's arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova are for specific war crimes under Article 8, not the separate 'crime of aggression,' which the court cannot pursue against Russian nationals at all since Russia never ratified the treaty.

That leaves a legal gap: individuals directly responsible for launching the war are largely shielded from that specific charge by Russia's non-ratification, while the war crimes track can still reach both senior officials and lower-level perpetrators for crimes committed on Ukrainian soil. The law, in other words, draws a much narrower circle of accountability than either the online debate or the war's scale might suggest.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.