Three years to the day since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the pace of recent events impacting Ukraine’s future has been dizzying. President Trump’s call with Russian President Putin on February 12 touched off a series of major policy announcements from the Trump Administration, including Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s speech asserting that a return to pre-2014 borders was unrealistic and that the Administration opposed Ukraine joining NATO, as well as Secretary of State Rubio’s unveiling of multi-track, high-level discussions with Russia on ending the war and improving U.S.-Russia bilateral relations. President Trump’s subsequent barbs against Ukrainian President Zelenskyy have only heightened anxieties about just how much Ukraine will be pressured to concede in service to a peace agreement.
It can be all too easy to get lost in this maelstrom, but the bottom line is this: no peace deal will survive in the long term unless it prioritizes justice and accountability for all crimes under international law committed since Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
A look at one of the groups that has suffered egregious harms as a result of Russia’s war of aggression helps explain the stakes.
Child victims have a right to justice
Amnesty International has documented the increasingly heavy toll that Russian strikes have taken on Ukraine’s children, especially in the last year. The vast majority of civilian casualties in Ukraine are caused by explosive weapons, which pose unique anatomical risks to children.
From January to September 2024, Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps analyzed more than 120 videos and images, verifying 17 incidents in which children were casualties.
From a precision guided glide bomb strike on a children’s sports club in Kharkiv Oblast in eastern Ukraine, to a hypersonic missile and drone strike on residential buildings in the western city of Lviv, to a cruise missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv, Amnesty International has identified a pattern of Russian attacks with large explosive weapons that appear to have been used in indiscriminate attacks, or in attacks that deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects in densely populated residential areas.
A Russian attack killed four members of the Bazylevych family: mother Yevheniia, and her three daughters, Yaryna, Daryna and Emiliia. When the air raid siren sounded, the family hid in the hallway. After a nearby explosion, Yevheniia took the children to the stairwell, everyone was sure it was safer. Then another missile hit.
UNICEF reports that as of December 2024, at least 2,472 children have been harmed in this war, with 667 killed and 1,805 injured.
These figures are likely an undercount, especially in areas like Mariupol and other Russian-occupied territories where access to accurate information is limited and many civilian victims have likely remained unaccounted for. As for the documented victims, they include those who died in indiscriminate strikes on civilian areas that amount to war crimes.
Beyond the immediate physical effects, so-called “reverberating effects” of explosive weapons, for example resulting destruction of housing, schools, water and sanitation facilities and other civilian infrastructure, can have devastating long-term effects on children.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian children in regions occupied by Russia suffer additional harms. Amnesty International has documented the forced transfer of civilians including children from occupied territories and the effects the war and occupation are having on education, including risks to teachers working under Russian occupation and to children learning Ukrainian language and history online.
The U.S. role
The conclusion is inescapable: the violence and human rights abuses against children – and all those harmed in the course of the war brought about by Russia’s aggression – must end, and all victims must receive justice.
Secretary Rubio recently stated that the United States wants the war to “end in a way that’s sustainable, meaning that we’re not going to be back here in two years with a new war.” But a sustainable peace is only possible if all those suspected of human rights violations and war crimes committed during the entirety of the conflict—including high-level officials—are held accountable in fair trial proceedings. Continued impunity for such acts would only encourage additional crimes under international law, including violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, setting the stage for renewed aggression.
For this reason, Amnesty International has called on the Trump Administration to put accountability at the top of the agenda for negotiations with Russia and Ukraine. In a January letter from Amnesty International USA and Amnesty International Ukraine, we called on the United States to uphold the following principles, all of which are essential to a sustainable end to the war:
- Russia must cease its war of aggression against Ukraine.
- Civilian detainees and prisoners of war must be treated in accordance with international law.
- Economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine must be maintained and should reach at-risk groups, including children, older people, and Indigenous Peoples.
- Civilians fleeing the war must be guaranteed refuge and protection.
- All those suspected of human rights violations and crimes under international law committed during the entirety of the conflict – including high-level officials – must be held accountable in fair trial proceedings.
- Ukraine must receive sustained international support for demining and clearance of explosive remnants of war.
What can you do?
Tell Congress that peace in Ukraine requires justice!
You can learn more about the human rights dimensions of the war in Ukraine and inform others by accessing Amnesty International’s research and reporting or listening to this discussion on human rights and Ukraine’s future.
We cannot let up pressure on the Russian government to end its ongoing violations. This is the moment to demand justice and accountability for all alleged crimes under international law committed over the course of the conflict. The Ukrainian people deserve nothing less.