Investigating Russia's War Crimes

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What does it take to investigate war crimes in Ukraine?

James Jackson follows the work of Ukrainian refugees documenting war crimes in Ukraine.

Two years ago, Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine. Millions of people were driven from their homes, and towns like Mariupol, Bucha and Irpin saw unimaginable suffering. Two days after the invasion, the Lemkin Centre was launched in Poland to try and document war crimes that Ukrainians had seen. 

Named after Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew who invented the concept of genocide, many workers at the Lemkin centre are survivors of war crimes themselves, like Kateryna Sukhomlynova, the last ambulance driver in Mariupol. They travel around Poland and Ukraine, doing the careful, painstaking work of interviewing witnesses and victims of crimes to later assist prosecutors and historians. 

Listening to people describe the worst moments of their life can take its toll on mental health and even re-traumatise the interviewers, while any tribunals seem remote and tied to the course of the war. Investigating and documenting potential war crimes is draining, and it doesn’t come with any guarantee of prosecution, let alone real consequences for perpetrators. However, the refugee workers are determined to do whatever is in their power to create a lasting record of their experiences.

With extensive interviews over a course of two years with the women and men doing some of the most difficult work off the battlefield, James Jackson follows them on the long and difficult road to justice. 

Producer and Presenter: James Jackson 
Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson

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