[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                   EXPOSING PUTIN'S CRIMES: EVIDENCE
                    OF RUSSIAN WAR CRIMES AND OTHER
                         ATROCITIES IN UKRAINE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             APRIL 19, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-20

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]        


       Available:  http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
                            docs.house.gov, 
                       or http://www.govinfo.gov
                       
                                __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
52-144                      WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                   MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     	GREGORY MEEKS, New Yok, Ranking 
JOE WILSON, South Carolina               	Member
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania	 	BRAD SHERMAN, California
DARRELL ISSA, California		GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ANN WAGNER, Missouri			WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
BRIAN MAST, Florida			DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
KEN BUCK, Colorado			AMI BERA, California
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee			JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee		DINA TITUS, Nevada
ANDY BARR, Kentucky			TED LIEU, California
RONNY JACKSON, Texas			SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
YOUNG KIM, California			DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida		COLIN ALLRED, Texas
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan			ANDY KIM, New Jersey
AMATA COLEMAN-RADEWAGEN, American	SARA JACOBS, California
    Samoa				KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas			SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, 
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio			 	Florida	
JIM BAIRD, Indiana			GREG STANTON, Arizona
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida			MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TOM KEAN, JR., New Jersey		JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MIKE LAWLER, New York			JONATHAN JACOBS, Illinois
CORY MILLS, Florida			SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
RICH MCCORMICK, Georgia			JIM COSTA, California
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas			JASON CROW, Colorado
JOHN JAMES, Michigan			BRAD SCHNEIDER. Illinois
KEITH SELF, Texas      
                                    
                    Brenden Shields, Staff Director
                    Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Kostin, Andriy, Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Office of the 
  Prosecutor General.............................................     8

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    53
Hearing Minutes..................................................    54
Hearing Attendance...............................................    55

    STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD FROM REPRESENTATIVE CONNOLLY

Statement submitted for the record from Representative Connolly..    56

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record..................    57

 
                   EXPOSING PUTIN'S CRIMES: EVIDENCE
                    OF RUSSIAN WAR CRIMES AND OTHER
                         ATROCITIES IN UKRAINE

                       Wednesday, April 19, 2023

                          House of Representatives,
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:45 a.m., in 
room 210, House Visitor Center, Hon. Michael McCaul (chairman 
of the committee) presiding.
    Chairman McCaul. Thank you for being here today. The 
purpose of this hearing is to expose Russian war crimes and 
other atrocities in Ukraine and to ensure that the world never 
forgets. I also hope to discuss efforts to ensure perpetrators 
up to the highest levels of the Kremlin face justice. I now 
recognize myself for an opening statement.
    We just heard two horrific and heartbreaking stories from 
victims of Russia's ongoing war crimes in Ukraine. Sadly, those 
are just two examples of the more than 80,000 war crimes that 
the Prosecutor General's Office has recorded.
    From the beginning of Russia's war of aggression in 
Ukraine, Russian troops have been engaging in unspeakable acts 
against the Ukrainian people. To break the will of the 
Ukrainian people, Russia has employed the use of terror through 
barbaric war crimes from sexual violence including the rape of 
children and the elderly to mass executions and torture, all 
targeted at innocent civilians.
    Shortly after this unprovoked invasion, I introduced the 
Ukraine Invasion War Crimes Deterrence and Accountability Act 
which was signed into law. It requires the Administration to 
report to Congress on the U.S. response to war crimes being 
committed in Ukraine. Disappointingly, the Administration has 
failed to provide this report to date.
    Over the last 14 months, what we have witnessed is bone 
chilling: the bombing of a maternity hospital, corpses 
littering the streets of Bucha, hands tied behind their backs, 
bullets in their head, some of them decapitated; mothers raped 
in front of their children, young girls in front of their 
families, the bodies of innocent Ukrainians half buried in mass 
graves, countless torture chambers throughout Russian-occupied 
territory, mobile crematoriums used to dispose the evidence of 
their indiscriminate killings, the bombardment of apartments 
and public buildings providing refuge to children and the 
elderly, including a theater in Mariupol that had the words 
children written outside so large in Russian you could see it 
from the satellites.
    The head of the 1-year anniversary of the invasion, I led a 
congressional delegation to Ukraine including Representatives 
Issa and Self who sit on this committee. We met with the 
Prosecutor General Kostin who is before us here today. He 
personally escorted us to Bucha to see the site of the first 
mass grave discovered and we met some of the first victims of 
Russian war crimes. It was a sobering experience and one that I 
will never forget. And as this war rages on, these war crimes 
have only continued.
    Following the liberation of Kherson which was under Russian 
occupation for 8 months, more horrors have been discovered. 
Russian soldiers had taken old detention centers and converted 
them into torture chambers. Those subject to these torture 
chambers included journalists, civil servants, teaches, and 
random citizens. They were subjected to electric shock, 
torture, ferocious beatings, suffocation, and water boarding. 
They even discovered a children's cell specifically used to 
torture and abuse children. These were not the actions of some 
rogue soldiers, but rather a planned and financed operation of 
terror sanctioned at the highest levels of the Kremlin.
    The investigators who collected this evidence said this was 
``a calculated plan to terrorize, subjugate, and eliminate 
Ukrainian resistance and destroy Ukrainian identity.'' This is 
the reality for every single innocent Ukrainian who remains 
trapped enemy lines and under Russian occupation.
    Recently, we have learned of Russian soldiers beheading 
Ukrainian POWs. Just this past Monday, the story broke 
outlining how Wagner commanders confessed to extensive war 
crimes including the execution of 20 children, along with 
blowing up a pit of more than 50 wounded captives. They 
admitted they were given orders to ``shoot without words'' at 
anyone over the age of 15. Russian soldiers and Wagner Group 
mercenaries, in horrific detail I have heard, have been 
reported carry Viagra with them to forcefully rape women and 
children.
    I personally heard an account from a Ukrainian mother who 
saw her 5-year-old daughter gang raped to death by ten Wagner 
mercenaries who then threw her dead body on the side of the 
road. This is happening right now. They are monsters and they 
need to be brought to justice.
    One would think the horrors of such acts would have been 
discarded into the ash heap of history as Ronald Reagan once 
said. But sadly, the depravity of Russia's invading forces 
knows no bounds. We have seen the mass deportation and 
relocation of Ukrainian children, tens of thousands of children 
have been kidnaped, handed over to Russian families, and forced 
into pro-Russian reeducation systems.
    These are more than war crimes. These are more than crimes 
against humanity. What we are witnessing in Ukraine is 
genocide. By definition, genocide is ``the intention to destroy 
a people in whole or in part, including by forcibly 
transferring children of the group to another group.''
    Putin and Kremlin's senior officials have made clear that 
their intent is to systematically wipe out Ukraine's existence. 
The free world cannot sit idly by and allow this to happen. It 
is beyond time that this Administration, along with our allies, 
provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to win.
    We need to do more than just give Ukraine enough for 
survival. We urgently must give them longer-range systems such 
as ATACMS for victory. These are critical to not only destroy 
the Iranian drones in Crimea that have been devastating to 
Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, but also to enable Ukraine 
to push forward with this imminent counter offensive to 
recapture its territory and liberate its own people from the 
daily threat of this Russian terror.
    History will judge this moment and ask what we did to stop 
this. No country can remain neutral in the face of such evil. 
Genocide must not be tolerated by the free world. And just as 
we held perpetrators of genocide to account in the Nuremberg 
trials following World War II, we must also hold Putin and his 
soldiers accountable for the Russian horrors inflicted on 
Ukraine. History will judge us by what we do here and now.
    With that, the chair now recognizes the Ranking Member.
    Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You cannot be human and 
not feel the evil that has been done to our witnesses, to the 
Ukrainian people. You cannot be human. It is devastation. You 
cannot be human and see as I have seen traveling to both 
Ukraine and Poland the torture, the devastation, the 
destruction of families. Never thought in the year 2023 you 
would see such devastation again.
    The question is how can any leader, any human being--I 
thought that maybe we would have learned by now that we do not 
treat others in the manner of evil and destruction that we see. 
This and the way that the Ukrainians are suffering every day, 
every day that Russia's brutal war continues and I cannot help 
but even think that even when you look at the destruction, when 
the fighting stops, Ukrainians will have to deal with all of 
the consequences of this evil act, the scars.
    We heard the representative talk--could you imagine the 
scars of that witness that we have in the back? They will last 
a lifetime, the scars, the trauma. The young children who as 
you see and I have seen on the streets, that trauma will be 
with them for a lifetime. The decimated towns and cities that 
Russia's illegal war has caused for what? For what?
    We have had the opportunity to hear the first-hand accounts 
of the two victims who have lived through Russia's war. Right 
now, I would like to thank both for their presence today and I 
do sure wish that they did not have to be here, but I think 
that the world needs to hear their testimony. Tragically, the 
experiences that they have been forced to endure is happening 
all across Ukraine.
    Mr. McCaul has listed several other events. I have seen and 
talked to other victims. And so what I want them to know we 
feel your pain. We hear your voices and the voices of all of 
your compatriots. And we cannot let your suffering be in vain. 
Thanks to your efforts, the world is aware of Putin's brutality 
from directing the abduction of children and the massacre of 
civilians from the targeting of hospitals and indiscriminate 
attacks in densely populated areas.
    We are here today to examine the work that is being done to 
bring perpetrators of these war crimes to Ukraine to justice. 
The ICC has been laying legal groundwork for accountability 
since Russia's initial invasion in the spring of 2014 when 
Russia began to kidnap children from Ukraine. And though this 
was at the time on a smaller scale because it is important to 
know that this did not just started, it started in 2014 in 
Crimea. It has been going on for too long. We show that we 
cannot just turn our head.
    You know, we have to remember that Putin claims that 
Ukraine is run by fascists. Oh, my God. Have you looked in the 
mirror? Have you looked in the mirror?
    We hear statements from Russian officials and from Russian 
disinformation outlets which seek to dehumanize
    Ukrainians. How can one take--and turn it around? How can a 
human being look himself in the mirror? How can they try to 
create a false narrative when clearly the whole world sees who 
the aggressor and who is committing the criminal acts?
    And so yes, the United States and our allies and partners 
must work diligently to ensure records and document ever piece 
of this criminal history beginning in 2014. And we must collect 
it so that all those who are responsible for war crimes and 
crimes against humanity and other human rights violations are 
held accountable. They cannot get away with it. They cannot 
think that just some kind of agreement can happen and then they 
walk from this crime, yes, from this genocide, that is being 
attempted. They must be held accountable.
    And as the war grinds on, the wheels of justice have to 
move as well and I stand in strong support of U.S. assistance 
in this space and for the establishment of a special hybrid 
tribunal to address the crime of aggression and I applaud the 
formalization of cooperation between the United States and 
European States and our war crimes accountability teams. And I 
know the legal path of justice is precarious. But we in the 
U.S. Congress are determined to provide the support needed to 
secure justice for victims.
    Ukrainians did not ask for this unjust war. They are only 
asking for our support as they defend their homes and their 
sovereignty. And it is in our national interest to provide the 
support to Ukraine so that it wins this war and it will. And 
after Ukraine wins, post-conflict justice and accountability 
must be central in any post-war reconstruction effort. I yield 
back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields back. I want to you 
for your moral clarity as always envisioned. I will never 
forget being on the Polish border of Ukraine with you 2 weeks 
after the invasion and there were thousands and Mrs. Wagner was 
there was well, thousands of women and children, refugees, 
leaving their husbands and fathers behind to fight the war, 
thousands of them. It could have been in black and white and it 
would have looked like 1939 all over again. And every time I 
travel to Poland, they tell me that. This reminds us of 1939. 
We cannot let history repeat itself.
    So with that, I am pleased to welcome the Prosecutor 
General of the Ukraine, Mr. Kostin, before us today. We have 
met several times and the last time I saw you, sir, was at the 
mass grave in Bucha, a very moving experience. I commend you 
for shining a light on this darkness and these Russian 
atrocities that have been committed in the Ukraine and I yield 
to you, sir, for your opening statement.


  STATEMENT OF ANDRIY KOSTIN, PROSECUTOR GENERAL OF UKRAINE, 
                OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTOR GENERAL


    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, 
Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Meeks, and the distinguished 
members of the committee.
    Thank you very much for this opportunity to appear before 
you today and unmask war crimes and other atrocities that 
Russia is committing in Ukraine. At the outset, I wish to 
convey my sincere gratefulness to the United States, its 
government, and people for your unwavering and continued 
support to Ukraine.
    Sadly, the heinous acts described in the statements of the 
two survivors that we have just heard during the briefing are 
not an anomaly or an exception from what is going on their 
battlefields. Rather, such a behavior is a feature of Russian 
military and political doctrine and modus operandi of Russian 
armed forces and their proxies.
    The world has witnessed devastating effects of these 
policies not only in Ukraine, but repeatedly. As described by 
the Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his February 18th, 
2023 announcement Russia has committed crimes against humanity 
in Ukraine and ``these acts are not random or spontaneous. They 
are part of Kremlin's widespread and systematic attacks against 
Ukraine's citizen population.''
    From February 24, 2022, we have observed and documented 
brutal and deliberate attacks of Russia on residential areas, 
hospitals, schools, kindergartens, and even theaters in 
different cities and towns of Ukraine. A tragedy and crime of 
bombing of Mariupol drama theater, which resulted in close to 
600 deaths, is the most vulnerable civilian population trapped 
in Mariupol. It is a clear exemplification of the criminal 
strategy of the warfare of Russia.
    Moreover, Russian forces regularly have been shelling 
evacuation routes and convoys marked as civilians; 
systematically practice torture and rape and engage in summary 
executions, after which mass graves are being discovered 
throughout the country. These actions have nothing to do with 
waging war under the rules of international humanitarian law.
    Their objective, rather, is to sow fear and terror. As of 
today, we have registered close to 80,000 cases of war crimes. 
Evidence of these crimes, however, is growing exponentially. 
This is particularly connected to the occupation of the parts 
of Ukraine. As an example, when the Ukrainian military 
liberated Kherson in November 2022, the same pattern of 
barbaric crimes seen in Bucha and other cities in Kyiv region, 
Sumy, Chemihiv, and Izum was also uncovered there.
    To date, only in Kherson, the region, over 13,000 criminal 
cases in relation to crimes committed by Russian forces have 
been launched. Nine hundred and eight civilians are registered 
dead, only in Kherson region.
    Allow me to draw your attention to a few examples of 
atrocities uncovered in this beautiful part of Ukraine. Torture 
chambers. We have discovered that approximately 20 such 
locations and even more unlawful detention facilities. Over 
1,000 torture chamber survivors submitted their evidences. 
Survivors report that Russian forces subjected them to 
different forms of abuse including beating with sticks and 
rubber batons, use of electric shocks, waterboarding, stripping 
them naked, threats of death or mutilation and others. 
Moreover, they were forced to shout Russian slogans and listen 
to Russian anthem. While during nights, they were hearing 
screams of others being beaten.
    In the course of investigation, we have discovered evidence 
of financial records showing a direct linkage between the 
torture chambers and the Russian security agencies. This is a 
clear sign that the policy of torture is a part of criminal 
plan of Moscow to subjugate Ukrainians.
    Another systemic and widespread crime we detected is 
enforced disappearance, that over 600 individuals whose 
whereabouts are currently unknown. This is also a pattern that 
is common to all territories that fell under Russian 
occupation.
    Public officials and political active citizens who 
dissented from denouncing Ukrainians who disappeared or were 
executed. Occupant forces implemented the full-scale search for 
pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian residents, journalists, Ukrainian 
patriots, and targeted them.
    In Kherson, like other cities and towns, sexual violence 
has also been used as a political and military tactic by 
Russian forces. This was done to humiliate and break resistance 
of civilian populations. We have documented over 60 instances 
of rape only in Kherson region. I will bring three examples.
    We have an on-going investigation into the fact of 4 months 
long forced deprivation of liberty, continuous rape, and 
humiliation of residents of Kherson region by Russian 
servicemen who enter into their house of the victims, stay 
there for a prolonged time, and together with rape, threatened 
the victim and her 9-year-old son this with physical violence.
    We are also investigating cases of rape of minors. In one 
of the villages of Kherson region, a soldier of proxy forces 
abducted a minor from the house in the presence of mother and 
grandmother and raped the victim.
    We also have a pattern of rape and torture, as well as 
sexual harassment, specifically against the family members of 
Ukrainian armed forces.
    One of the most horrendous crimes Russia is committing is 
forced transfer. We see on a daily basis that from the part of 
Kherson region, which is still under Russian occupation, 
occupation Administration is carrying mass forced relocation of 
residents, including children, to other temporarily occupied 
territories or to the Russian Federation. This is the 
continuation of the strategy of separating Ukrainians and 
especially children from their parents and families with the 
objective of their quick assimilation into Russian society, 
Russia, even simply by the process of granting citizenship or 
to forcibly transfer children.
    Russia shamelessly violates fundamental tenets of 
international law. It is committing core international crimes 
in Ukraine, even though what I manage to discuss is just a tip 
of an iceberg. It is, however, sufficient to demonstrate 
inherently criminal plan of the Russian leadership to spread 
fear and terror and eradicate resistance among Ukrainians so 
that Russia could remove Ukrainian identity.
    Moreover, crimes documented are systematic and widespread 
in nature. These are clear signs of a plan of persecution 
against Ukrainians as a national group, targeting Ukrainian 
identity and Ukrainian Statehood. These patterns are particular 
to the crime of genocide. Such evil cannot let be. It is our 
joint responsibility to do everything to uncover horrific 
crimes that Russia is committing in Ukraine, but exposure does 
not suffice.
    To ensure that this never happens again and to provide 
justice for victims and survivors, all those who orchestrated 
and enabled the commission of core international crimes should 
be held accountable. Only with discovering and determining 
truth, bringing perpetrators to responsibility, and providing 
adequate reparation to victims and survivors, we could say that 
justice had been done.
    For these reasons, it would be paramount for us to obtain 
your support on various legislative initiatives, such as 
condemning illegal abduction and kidnaping of children from 
Ukraine to Russia; designating the Russian-based mercenary 
Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization; Oligarch 
Assets for Ukrainian Victory Act authorizing the Department of 
Justice to transfer to the Department of State the proceeds of 
property seized pursuant to sanctions to be used to provide 
assistance to Ukraine, as well as supporting the creation of 
special tribunals for the punishment for the crime of 
aggression of Russia against Ukraine.
    I understand that the U.S. Congress has considered further 
amendments to the penal code to include a new provision 
criminalizing crimes against humanity which would prevent 
impunity for such crimes when perpetrators appear on United 
States soil. When the U.S. takes the lead on this issue, the 
world watches and it emboldens our own efforts in obtaining 
international justice.
    I am confident that Ukraine, hand in hand with the United 
States and other countries of the civilized world, will achieve 
this. Thank you and I stand ready to answer your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Kostin follows:]

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman McCaul. Thank you, sir. And from one prosecutor to 
another, I commend you for your courage, your bravery, and 
your--just a strong character to seek justice against these 
monsters.
    I want to ask you about these children. I think about 
20,000 now, and that is just the ones we know about, have been 
abducted and transferred into indoctrination camps in Russia.
    Do we have any--is there any evidence of this? How high of 
a level do you think this comes from?
    Mr. Kostin. One of the most challenging tasks for all of us 
is to identify not only the number of children who are forcibly 
deported, but also to identify where they are. You know that 
according to our information, we have information about up to 
20,000 Ukrainian children who were forcibly deported. And only 
a small part of them returned home.
    For this, we need strong, unified pressure over Russian 
leadership in order to return Ukrainian children back home. 
this is easy if they want to do it. There is a set of 
international legislation which could be used in order to 
return children via third countries, via international 
organizations to their families and to their country.
    I always ask all the leaders I meet to raise this issue on 
a daily basis using all your influence on the international 
level that Russians will return our children home. It is also 
important, and I would say historic, that the first arrest 
warrant served, issued by the International Criminal Court, as 
a matter of war crime committed during this full-scale 
aggression, is issued against incumbent president of Russian 
Federation Putin and I would say Commissioner, in brackets, for 
children rights, Lvova-Belova, so that whole world now sees 
that Putin is suspect war criminal and the pressure over him 
and his government to return our children back should be 
worldwide including the countries of global south and some 
others who still try to be neutral or still try to shake hands 
with Putin and his regime. They also need to see that Putin is 
a suspect in war crimes which has forced deportation and 
abduction of Ukrainian children.
    Chairman McCaul. Do you believe the orders to abduct and 
indoctrinate these 20,000 children that we know about, that 
order comes directly from Putin?
    Mr. Kostin. This order comes, yes, directly from Mr. Putin 
and we have a set of legislature acts and a set of his even 
public statements which confirm that he ordered such policy. 
And this information is also in line with the findings of the 
team of Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court with 
whom we cooperate on constant scale.
    Chairman McCaul. I think it is important this abduction of 
children, transporting, and indoctrinating falls squarely 
within the definition of genocide.
    Mr. Kostin. Absolutely. We follow our investigation for 
such war crimes in two dimensions, as war crimes and potential 
as a crime of genocide.
    Chairman McCaul. Can you describe your--this will be my 
last question--your relationship with our Department of 
Justice? Are they fully cooperating with your investigation?
    Mr. Kostin. I am grateful for the Department of Justice, 
and personally the Attorney General Merrick Garland, for 
unprecedented support and coordination of our efforts. We are 
also cooperating with other--investigation of other war crimes, 
and we have a cooperation with regard also to the case of 
deportation of Ukrainian children, the details I will not 
disclose at the moment.
    Chairman McCaul. Thank you, sir. I now recognize the 
Ranking Member.
    Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Kostin, again, for joining us 
today. And picking up from where Chairman McCaul, I think that 
I understand that you have indeed had a meeting with your 
counterpart, Attorney General Garland recently, and that the 
DOJ is going to increase its support and send additional 
investigators to the Hague and to our embassy in Kyiv.
    So let me ask for you to describe the needs of your office, 
the Office of the Prosecutor General going forward. What sort 
of forensic labs and equipment and personnel does the Office 
need so that you can continue to be effective and how are other 
international partners assisting your efforts and filling 
capacity gaps that may remain so that you can get and do 
everything you need so that we can make sure that justice is 
had?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We 
receive, continue to receive all necessary technical support 
from the U.S. Government which is needed to conduct proper 
investigation and documentation of the war crimes of this war 
of aggression.
    We are grateful for technical support, from notebooks, cell 
phones, personal protective equipment, generators, power 
stations. You know, we have had very difficult winter and for 
many times some of my offices were cut of energy, were cutoff 
resources for several days. And we are grateful for supply of 
generators which helped us to not only to run our offices, but 
also to proceed our work documenting and investigating war 
crimes.
    What we need now more within the course of our 
investigations, we collect huge amounts of data that needs to 
be stored and analyzed and it requires proper equipment and 
proper IT solutions. We are now, with the help of our partners 
in the United States, are in good contact with providers of the 
data--providers of IT solutions like Microsoft, like Palantir, 
who are granting us free access to their IT solutions. We need 
to analyze terabytes of photo, video, voice information to 
match them for a specific crime scene in order to--not to lose 
any evidence that we have collected. Because it is not only us 
who are collecting evidence, they are also collected by people. 
They are also collected by non-governmental organizations, by 
civil society organizations.
    And I am also especially grateful for your assistance to 
our NGO's and civil society organizations who are really 
helping us not only with documenting of war crimes, but also 
helping us with the communications with witnesses and 
survivors. You know how sensitive it is in some as I mentioned. 
And I am also grateful and we will need more assistance and I 
believe we will get it.
    We are now creating a coordination center for the victims, 
survivors, and witnesses of war crimes under the umbrella of 
the Office of Prosecutor General. We know that the interests of 
survivors and witnesses of this war should be our center of our 
attention and efforts.
    Mr. Meeks. Let me also ask, I know that there are multiple 
efforts including those at the ICC and the U.N. that they 
contribute to build a legitimacy for the establishment of a 
special hybrid tribunal for the crime of aggression. So how can 
the United States better support efforts to broaden the 
legitimacy of international legal mechanisms so that everybody 
is going after these crimes against humanity like Putin and 
some other vicious individuals who are committing those crimes?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. I think that the establishment of 
special tribunal for the crime of aggression is an extremely 
important element of our web of accountability because the 
crime of aggression which is a leadership crime and which 
leaded to all other war crimes committed should be prosecuted 
and punished on an international level. We have our own 
investigation for the crime of aggression, but we cannot reach 
troika, including President of Russian Federation, because of 
personal immunity and we need international mechanisms which 
should have a broad support of all the countries who know that 
act of aggression was committed and who believe that act of 
aggression should be punished on international level.
    It is not only a war of Russia against Ukraine. It is a 
global war. I do not know any country which does not feel the 
consequences of this war of aggression in many layers, but 
everyone, this war touches every country in the world. This war 
touches any citizen, any person in the world, even if some of 
them do not understand this now, they will understand this in 
the future and it is our joint, it is our joint responsibility 
not only before the victims and survivors of this war of 
aggression to ensure their measure of justice for their crime 
of aggression committed by Russia. It goes to our obligation 
before future generations because you are absolutely right, 
both of you, that Nuremberg trials ensured long-lasting peace 
in Europe for decades.
    Now we have a gap in international system of law and order. 
We need to fill in this gap and to ensure long-lasting peace 
for Europe and for global-global level after this war. And 
proper international tribunal for the crime of aggression will 
also play a deterrent factor for any future aggressor who could 
try to become an aggressor in any part of the world.
    And I would also add, it is not only our obligation before 
the victims and survivors of this war. Not only our common 
obligation before the future generation, it is our obligation 
commemorating all victims of the previous wars and conflicts 
who did not receive their measure of justice. We do not need to 
forget about them. And only united we will reach this goal. I 
firmly believe in it. Thank you for your question.
    Mr. Meeks. Thank you very much.
    Chairman McCaul. Very powerful. I remember visiting with a 
Ukrainian soldier the last time I was in Ukraine. He said we 
are fighting for you. We are fighting for the free world. And 
they are.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Smith.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
for convening this extraordinarily important hearing and Mr. 
Prosecutor General, thank you for your leadership, your 
testimony.
    Seventy-eight thousand war crimes, I mean that is 
outrageous and the fact that the ICC only just a few weeks ago 
finally brought action against two individuals, as you said, 
the so-called Commission--children's issues and, of course, 
Putin, in a very, very narrow, but important area of focus to 
me speaks volumes of the lack of response by the international 
community when it comes to accountability.
    A year ago on March 8th, I chaired a hearing of the Tom 
Lantos Human Rights Commission, talking about the need for 
accountability and bringing a resolution to the United Nations 
that would do what? Not at the Security Council, but in the 
General Assembly, to have a tribunal on the war--of crime of 
aggression. I asked and I introduced resolution within a couple 
of days of that, asking that the Administration use his voice 
and vote at the U.N. And any country in the U.N. can bring such 
a resolution to bring this war of aggression, tribunal, into 
existence.
    I had David Drane, a man who prosecuted war crimes against 
Charles Taylor at a hearing a year ago and he said the General 
Assembly could create this. It could do it immediately. You are 
not going to get it in the Security Council. It would be vetoed 
by China and by Russia, but it can happen in the General 
Assembly.
    So I think especially based on your incredible work that 
you are doing, the world has to unite behind such a tribunal 
that, in fact, only two people, they are not the only two 
responsible. You know, even Lukashenko perhaps should be 
included in that list, but certainly all of these generals and 
the people that are on the ground committing these horrific war 
crimes need to be named, indicted, and then brought to trial, 
like you said, with the War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg. So I 
would ask you again, all of us, to redouble our efforts to 
create such an ad hoc tribunal.
    You know, you look at the ICC, 20 years of existence, over 
20 years, they have had ten convictions. They do not have a 
stellar track record. I am glad they have done what they have 
done, but they do not have a great track record and they do it 
very narrowly. They should have done this immediately. We were 
calling for that. I was calling for that. That is the reason I 
had the hearing and the resolution, so I just would call on all 
of us and I know you are doing the hard work. You know, it 
shouldn't be the country that is being so horribly and cruelly 
mistreated, fall to you to be the accountability mechanism and 
yet you are doing it.
    So following your inspiration, we need an ad hoc tribunal 
and we need it now and I hope the Administration, ours, or any 
other country that is concerned, would table a resolution at 
the General Assembly to establish such a tribunal. And your 
thoughts on that.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you so much. Thank you for your absolute 
commitment to ensure full accountability for the aggressor, 
including for the crime of aggression and thank you for your 
understanding that it should be done internationally with wide 
range of countries supporting this tribunal.
    We absolutely agree that one of the ways of establishment 
of this tribunal could be the resolution of General Assembly of 
United Nations which will give the right to the Secretary 
General of the United Nations to sign an agreement with Ukraine 
and to establish an international tribunal. We are standing for 
these positions and we will proceed our communication with all 
our partners, friends, and allies, in order to reach this 
proper solution for the international tribunal.
    Coming back to the work with the ICC, I will tell you, 
frankly, that the speed of reaction of the Prosecutor of the 
ICC, in these cases, in the war crimes committed in Ukraine is 
unbelievable. It was nothing before. This case which was filed 
by the Prosecutor Karim Khan to the ICC and where ICC issued an 
arrest warrant, I will tell you, it took us 5 months to prepare 
this case. This is very speedy manner of work. Because we 
prosecutors, we need to prepare the case--we have no right to 
lose this case. No one can imagine that it could happen. That 
is why we need to be very careful.
    We have other cases under our consideration and it is 
important that in our situation, Ukraine fully cooperated with 
the International Criminal Court. In some cases before in the 
history of the ICC, they tried to overcome the resistance of 
national authority and even the ICC was created for the cases 
where national government is unwilling or unable to prosecute 
war crimes committed in their country. We are willing and we 
are able and we are grateful for the ICC that first case they 
filed before the--I mean we are grateful for Prosecutor Khan, 
that first case they filed before the ICC has been fully 
complementary in this nature because we cannot prosecute Putin 
because of his immunity and this first case includes Putin and 
Lvova-Belova and other cases will follow. Be sure.
    Mr. Smith. I appreciate that. Thank you.
    Mr. Wilson [presiding]. Thank you very much, Congressman 
Chris Smith of New Jersey.
    We now proceed to Congressman Bill Keating of 
Massachusetts.
    Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the outset, first 
and foremost, I want to thank and acknowledge the courage of 
those witnesses and the representatives who shared their 
stories this morning. They are commonplace. Last year I was at 
the border of Ukraine and met with people on the ground that 
are assisting these victims and I would like to acknowledge the 
work that they are doing, risking their lives to help these 
victims as citizens of Ukraine, as nonprofit citizens of 
Ukraine working together.
    As a former district attorney, I have listened to stories 
of so many victims, the most heinous crimes. And I know the 
scars and the trauma that they leave behind. And I also know 
the importance of obtaining justice for those going forward on 
these unthinkable crimes and also the importance of swift 
action while this is taking place.
    And I commend you for the terrific job that you are doing 
in this regard, a hard job of doing this so quickly with 
urgency, because that serves as a deterrence while this war 
continues. For other people committing these acts of atrocity 
for our witnesses earlier this morning, for the thousands of 
individuals living in Ukraine who have been victims of these 
atrocities, we must hold the Russians--Russia war criminals, 
that is what they are, we must hold them accountable.
    Prosecutor Kostin, thank you for being here again today and 
September of last year. As chair of the subcommittee, you were 
a witness again. I had the privilege of hearing you testify and 
to help us better understand the atrocities that are occurring, 
the human rights abuses that have been committed by Russia. And 
we have met several times, including yesterday, talking about 
what we can do going forward. And I thank you for this special 
relationship that I will continue to work with you on this.
    One of the issues that we have worked on together is what 
has been spoken about this morning, the crime of aggression. 
Based on these discussions that we have had, I have introduced 
House Res. 81, calling on the President to support the creation 
of a special tribunal for the punishment of crimes of 
aggression against Ukraine.
    Today, as you have heard in previous hearings, you again 
demonstrate a clear foundation of evidence that you have 
established in showing atrocity of these crimes and for the 
crime of aggression and I strongly urge this committee to take 
up this piece of legislation quickly because of its urgent 
nature.
    In addition, we have also discussed in detail the situation 
of child abductions in Ukraine and the atrocities that surround 
them, just disappearing, taking them away from their families.
    As I mentioned to you yesterday, together with my 
colleagues in the Ukraine Caucus, I recently introduced 
legislation, House Res. 304 supporting the International 
Criminal Court's issuance of arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin 
and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Children's Rights 
Commissioner. What an ironic and sad title that is when you 
consider her war crimes that she is committing along with Putin 
himself.
    This resolution is bipartisan. And I believe it has a 
strong message to the international community. It is not just 
about U.S. It is not about Ukraine. It is for the international 
community so that we demonstrate the seriousness which the 
United States takes these investigations.
    Given the testimony we have heard today, I hope that that 
legislation is taken very swiftly up by this committee and move 
forward.
    I also, with your consultation over this time, introduced 
the Atrocity Crimes Relief and Accountability Act. A portion of 
this legislation was included in the omnibus last year. The 
Ukrainian refugees living in the United States on humanitarian 
parole can share their stories and support ICC investigations 
related to war crimes.
    The omnibus also included a provision encouraging U.S. 
Government's efforts to share evidence related to the atrocity 
of crimes in Ukraine and I urge all of us to take up that 
mandate. I realize these things are just small steps to going 
forward, but I will continue to work with you in that regard.
    In just the brief time we have, could you share with us, 
and you did so very forcefully about the need for acting 
together on establishing a special tribunal or working with 
holding Putin and Lvova-Belova accountable, the importance of 
doing it as a deterrence for current actions on the ground. How 
can these actions that we do here and the actions that you are 
doing prosecuting save future victims of this because it will 
deter people and soldiers on the ground now?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you, Congressman Keating and thank you 
for your constant support during these months of our joint 
work.
    I will start with the special tribunal. You know, I think 
that for the survivors who witnessed today in this hall, it 
will be a great signal of action, support by action, if 
Congress will support your resolution on establishment of 
special tribunal because this is--this is the needs of 
Ukrainian nation. They all understand, we all understand that 
if act of aggression would not have been committed, it would 
have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who 
were killed in course of this war of aggression.
    Let's not forget about our servicemen. Their lives are not 
protected by the international humanitarian law because they 
fight protecting their country, but who is responsible for the 
deaths of our servicemen, those who started aggression? Let's 
not forget about our servicemen, about their families, their 
mothers, wives, children, their husbands. We have a lot of 
servicemen, women, who also were killed and the only measure of 
justice for them is to hold aggressor accountable for the crime 
of aggression.
    And establishment of this tribunal is not only to ensure a 
measure of justice for them, but also it will be a strong 
signal to Putin and also to his surroundings, people who 
support him, but who maybe do not want to die with him. It 
could help to obtain changes within Russia because everyone in 
Russia including should understand that Putin will be forever 
war criminal, not only for war crimes, not only potentially for 
the crimes against humanity and for genocide, but also for the 
crime of aggression. And this should deter any future aggressor 
in any other part of the world who starts aggression. Only if 
they will see that all countries are united and ready to punish 
aggressor for the act of aggression.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Congressman Keating. I now 
recognize myself. And I am so grateful for the leadership of 
Chairman Mike McCaul and Ranking Member Greg Meeks.
    You can see this is bipartisan support by our leadership to 
expose to the American people, to the Russian people the 
murders, atrocities of war criminal Putin. Additionally, indeed 
it is unprecedented really how bipartisan this is with 
Congressman Keating and myself and the others who are here 
today in support of the people of Ukraine for victory. To the 
survivors of war criminal Putin's mass murderer and Prosecutor 
General, thank you for being here today.
    Also, I want to thank Ambassador Oksana Markarova who has 
been so effective to the people of Ukraine here in Washington. 
Your testimony is critical to exposing the heinous acts of war 
criminal Putin. As Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I was 
grateful to lead House Resolution 154, recognizing Putin 
atrocities in Ukraine as genocide with Ranking Member Steve 
Cohen.
    The litany of war crimes, including the forced kidnaping, 
raping, murdering of Ukrainian children dictates that we call 
these actions what they are, genocide. This war, General, is 
being recorded as no other war has been before. Through video, 
cell phones, drones, open source intelligence, satellites, and 
other digital sources, photographs and reporting are being 
disseminated through social media, including Telegram.
    Additionally, with barcode on military equipment for the 
courageous people of Ukraine, American taxpayers can be assured 
that there is a tracking of the equipment so that it is not 
diverted. Intentional diversion can be avoided. International 
organizations and NGO's are collecting information and evidence 
and using also artificial intelligence using facial recognition 
software for the military who are committing atrocities. What 
opportunities and challenges do these technologies pose? How 
can evidence restored to ensure that it is not corrupted or 
altered?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Wilson, for 
your strong support and thank you for your question. We return 
to the issue of how to use all the evidence which are collected 
electronically. And we just store it in different places at the 
moment, how to use them as a matter of evidence, and how not to 
lose the cases where we have evidence which are collected 
electronically.
    We have procedures that allow us to use the electronically 
collected evidence as a matter of evidence in criminal cases. 
Of course, it usually should be supported by other evidence 
collected. We have the cases where only because they wear 
cameras still operating we have identified perpetrators of the 
war crimes committed.
    When Chairman McCaul was in Bucha, we showed the video of 
the case where people tried to evacuate on 25 of February. And 
because of the camera still operating, we identified all of the 
perpetrators, all of the servicemen of Russian army. It was not 
easy because you couldn't just use this camera which is not 
with a very high quality. But when we try to use other elements 
of open source intelligence information, when we looked through 
their internet----
    Mr. Wilson. And General, I want to point out too, with the 
facial recognition, you can identify the soldiers. And then you 
will be able to identify the chain of command.
    Mr. Kostin. Yes.
    Mr. Wilson. The chain of command and the Russian military 
needs to know that they will be prosecuted. A final question 
from me, Putin's shameful disinformation claims that reports of 
crimes are fake. The mass murder and rape of Ukrainian women 
and children by Putin troops is well documented as you said.
    What more can be done for the international community to 
counter Putin's disgusting narrative? Do you think that the 
Russian public will ever believe that the crimes were created 
and carried by Russian forces? And on my many visits to Russia, 
I was so impressed by the people I met there.
    They are so talented, and I just had such high hopes for 
the people of Russia. Sadly, though, this week, I joined with 
the Washington Post supporting the Russian patriot Vladimir 
Kara-Murza for fighting for a free Russia. How can we 
communicate with the people of the world but particularly maybe 
the people of Russia?
    Mr. Kostin. First, I will answer the first question about 
the evidence of atrocious war crimes. What we did starting from 
the appearance in Bucha, we immediately invited and ask all 
world known media to join our first police and special forces 
when they entered the city. We did the same when we liberated 
Kharkiv region.
    And as soon as we get information about mass grave in 
Izium, we did not dig these mass graves before all journalists 
who wanted to be present come. And this was done in presence. 
So this is the best evidence for the world that everything 
which we are telling is true. For the second question, I am 
sorry. It was about----
    Mr. Wilson. How can we appeal to the people of Russia the 
truth? And you just answered it. And so with that, I am 
actually happy to now recognize the distinguished 
Congressperson from Rhode Island, Congressman David Cicilline.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 
Prosecutor General Kostin. It is good to see you again, and 
thank you for your testimony and most importantly for the 
important work that you are doing and your colleagues to ensure 
that both the Ukrainian government and the international 
community seek and obtain accountability for the horrific war 
crimes that Russia has carried out in Ukraine. And we have all 
watched as well as the entire international community has 
witnesses Russia launch air strikes and missile attacks on 
apartment buildings, a maternity ward, schools, train stations, 
and other civilian targets.
    In Bucha, journalists and forensic doctors have 
meticulously documented the horrors carried about by Russian 
forces, including as you said the rape, torture, and execution 
of civilians. And throughout Ukraine, we have seen Russian 
forces forcibly deport Ukrainians, including thousands of young 
children to Russian controlled areas. These heinous acts are 
war crimes plain and simple. And both the United States and the 
entire international community have a critical role to play in 
supporting the Ukrainians government and the international 
institutions as they work to pursue justice and accountability 
for all the victims of these horrific atrocities.
    And so my first question, Mr. Kostin, is according to 
UNESCO, more than 240 Ukrainian Heritage Sites are estimated to 
have been damaged since the Russian invasion last year, 
including the Kharkiv State Academic Opera Theater and 
Mariupol's Museum of Local Lore. Putin has terrifyingly made 
culture both a justification and an object of war with Ukraine 
with deliberate aims to destroy what it means to be Ukrainian. 
So my first question is, how can the international community 
and particularly the United States support your efforts with 
respect this particular pernicious effort by the Russian 
government and Russian forces?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for your question. We, of course, 
treat these actions as an element of intentional and 
potentially genocidal policy of Russian Federation. Our team, 
we have a special team of war crimes prosecutors who are now 
concentrated on our structural case of the crime of genocide.
    And we are collecting evidence together with our State 
institutions in order to not only to fix the number of cultural 
heritage destroyed by Russian forces but also to establish the 
links between this destroying and some other actions. Like, for 
instance, we are now establishing and talking about different 
story, establishing the links between cyber and kinetic attacks 
on objects of critical civil infrastructure, trying to 
establish the case of cyber crime as a war crime.
    So coming back to the heritage, of course, we will need 
more expert support because the issue of cultural prosecution 
and punishment for the cultural genocide is not very well 
established on the world level. So I will be grateful for 
expert support in this field in order to check the evidence and 
to prepare a strong case. And I fully agree with you that this 
is an act of genocide.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. And we passed in the last 
Congress a piece of legislation called Justice for Victims of 
War Crimes that Senator Grassley and Senator Durbin and 
Representative Spartz and I worked on which would allow us to 
prosecute people for war crimes if they are in the United 
States for war crimes they have committed anywhere in the world 
which I think will give us an additional tool. But as Mr. 
Keating was saying, it is so important for the Russian military 
to see evidence that they will be held accountable if they 
continue to engage in this really horrific conduct.
    What can we do right now as members of the U.S. Congress to 
support your work and make certain that you are successful as 
the chief prosecutor in holding both Vladimir Putin and all of 
the Russian military accountable for their conduct? What can we 
be doing to be helpful?
    Mr. Kostin. I will not repeat the issue of supporting of 
special tribunal. I have already pointed out this. I would say 
that the extension or expending of the corporation with the 
International Criminal Court in cases related to the war crimes 
committed in Ukraine would be also helpful because we are, as I 
mentioned, in very good cooperation with the ICC.
    And they could need some piece of evidence which could be 
collected here. And third, of course, we are asking for sharing 
with us more intelligence information. There are cases of war 
crimes known globally, worldwide, where we need some 
information which we cannot receive by any other sources. So if 
we will have more support on sharing of intelligence 
information for the purpose of making Russia accountable, this, 
I believe, will be very helpful for the matter of justice.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you so much. I yield back, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman Cicilline. We now 
proceed to Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
    Mr. Perry. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 
you, Prosecutor General, for being here. It is going to be hard 
for any of us to hold the sovereign nation of Russia or its 
leader accountable. We need to try and do that.
    In the meaning, what we can do is make sure that we are on 
our best behavior. And as you probably know in America 
yesterday was tax day. Americans are forced to send in their 
hard earned dollars oftentimes for things they do not agree 
with.
    It is in total about 30 billion dollars in humanitarian aid 
that we have sent to Ukraine. And I just want to run through a 
series of dates and reports for you. In 2011, a report by the 
Atlantic said that citizens of Ukraine thought that bribes were 
customary and expected.
    In 2011, the president of Ukraine Stated that bribes and 
corruption cost the country about two and a half billion or 10 
to 15 percent of the country's budget. In 2016, a report 
indicated that between 38 and 42 percent reported paying a 
bribe to access basic public services. In 2022, the former head 
of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency was charged with 
embezzling 10.6 million dollars in funds.
    And in 2022, the National Corruption Bureau of Ukraine 
observed and noted corruption remained common at all levels in 
the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Sir, we want 
to make sure that all our money is safeguarded and that we are 
not involved not only in losing that money that the American 
taxpayer works hard for but in the corruption itself. And I 
want to bring another series of events to you.
    The U.K. Serious Fraud Office froze 23 million dollars of a 
guy named Zlochevsky's assets. He was in charge of Burisma. On 
April 13 of 2014, Hunter Biden said the contract should start 
now, not after the upcoming visit of my guy, his guy being the 
Vice President of the United States.
    On April 22 of the same year, Hunter and Archer said that 
Ukraine must understand the value of Burisma. And on May 12 of 
2014, Hunter Biden said, started working for the Burisma board 
at 83,000 dollars in change per month. On May 12, Zlochevsky's 
envoy said, use your influence to combat the Ukrainian 
government's allegations against Burisma.
    George Kent from our embassy told the DOJ that Burisma paid 
7 million dollars in bribes to prosecutors to kill the 
investigation into bribes for gas and oil permit license. 
February 10, 2015, Yarema replaced by Viktor Shokin. And then a 
Soros-funded activist group called the Anti-Corruption Action 
Center which is ironic said that Shokin was not pursuing 
Zlochevsky which, of course, was absolutely not the case 
because on February 2 of the same year, Viktor Shokin issued 
arrest warrants for Zlochevsky and wanted to seize his assets.
    And the on February 12 of 2016, President Biden called then 
Present Poroshenko. And then on February 17/18 of 2016, 
literally 10 days later thereabouts, Victor Shokin, the 
prosecutor general, was fired. May 13 of 2016, Joe Biden, the 
President now, Vice President then tells President Poroshenko 
that one billion dollars in loan guarantees would be 
forthcoming.
    And then in the intervening time, President--well, then 
Vice President Biden went before the Council on Foreign 
Relations and announced that I told them they had to fire the 
prosecutor general or they wouldn't get the loan guarantees. 
And what do you know, son of bitch, the prosecutor was fired. 
And then on 2020--in April 2020, Victor Shokin was formerly 
recorded as the victim of an alleged crime by former Vice 
President Joe Biden.
    So sir, with all of that information, in 2019, once of your 
predecessors as prosecutor general announced a reinvestigation 
into Burisma and some of their high-level employees. The 
prosecutor general was reopening and auditing criminal cases 
that his office believes had been mishandled or that the 
conduct of the previous offices had not been proper. Since that 
time, if it announced that those investigations have been put 
on hold because of the inability to locate the former CEO of 
Burisma.
    But we probably can and we probably can locate Hunter 
Biden. Mr. Kostin, what is your office's position that Burisma 
needs further investigation? And will you commit to 
investigating Burisma to the full extent no matter what 
pushback you get and no matter who you need to call as a 
witness, including Americans that might be involved in the 
corruption and malfeasance and loss and theft of taxpayer money 
in your country?
    Mr. Kostin. Congressman, you started with the dates and 
facts. I will add one date and fact. March 2023, by the 
decision of GRECO, anti-corruption wing of the Council of 
Europe, is Ukraine is excluded from the blacklist of countries 
who are not fighting against corruption for our work fighting 
corruption----
    Mr. Perry. We congratulate you for that.
    Mr. Kostin [continuing]. Against members of the parliament, 
prosecutors and judges.
    Mr. Perry. We congratulate you for that.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. This is the latest achievement in 
anti-corruption initiatives. I also would like to mention that 
in course of coming last month, in addition to the chair of 
special anti-corruption prosecutor's office whom I appointed in 
late July last year, we have already new director of National 
Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine appointed after open 
selection procedure.
    And also, high anti-corruption court has elected the 
president of the court. So all three bodies are equipped with 
the current leadership. With regard to case you have mentioned, 
it is not unfortunately the topic of our committee hearing.
    So I am not entitled at the moment to get you more 
information about this case. It is our committee hearing 
related to war crimes. And with regard to all financial aid we 
receive, I have mentioned our two latest achievements on the 
level on our work against fighting against corruption. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman Perry. We now proceed to 
Congresswoman Susan Wild of Pennsylvania.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, 
Prosecutor General. I believe that you were just subjected to a 
diatribe from somebody who did not actually hear the testimony 
earlier today which is a shame. I wanted to ask you, sir, what 
more can the United States and other countries do to help 
facilitate the abducted children's return?
    Mr. Kostin. I think that we all should be vocal as I 
mentioned every day, not only the governments of States, I 
mean, not from the U.S. but the others. But also maybe you all 
as members of parliament who represent American nation, I would 
also--I think that Putin who is suspect in committing this 
crime should feel that he stayed alone. And even governments of 
some countries who are trying once again to be complimentary to 
him should receive strong feedback--let me use this word--from 
the other countries, including the U.S., saying that this--you 
cannot be neutral with regard to such crime committed by Putin.
    Ms. Wild. I would agree with you on that, and I think that 
a number of us try very hard to elevate this subject as much as 
possible. I would also note that the subject of missing, 
exploited, kidnaped children does not belong in any discussion 
about political matters such as my colleague just raised. Can I 
ask you, has the United States' assistance to Ukraine been 
sufficient? And specifically, I am not talking about weapons or 
anything else, in the efforts to return and reintegrate 
Ukrainian children?
    Mr. Kostin. Let me be very honest. I do not think that we 
are in a situation that any assistance is sufficient until our 
children are returned home.
    Ms. Wild. Fair enough.
    Mr. Kostin. And what I would like to ask you because we are 
trying to find out, to invent maybe other ideas what could be 
done. And I am asking you also to try to help us with this 
because we try everything. Maybe you will invent something 
more.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you. I know that the U.N. Human Rights 
Office has played a critical role in documenting children's 
human rights violations by Russian forces. And they have 
confirmed 487 cases of children killed, 954 injured, with the 
actual numbers almost certainly much higher.
    They have also documented some of the heinous crimes 
against children that we do not need to go into again right 
now. But has that been helpful to ensure the welfare of 
deported children or in helping them to return to Ukraine? Or 
would your answer be similar to your last one which is helpful 
but nothing is enough until we get them back?
    Mr. Kostin. I think once again, nothing is enough. But in 
this situation, we need as broad support as it is possible. We 
understand some complexities dealing with U.S. institutions 
with regard to U.N. position which could be not very strict in 
some cases with regard to the evidence of war crimes we have. 
But we commend the work of U.N. institutions because they help 
us to----
    Ms. Wild. Promote awareness?
    Mr. Kostin. Yes, to promote awareness and maybe to change 
approach of those internationally who are still complementary 
with Putin and his team because----
    Ms. Wild. Let me just stop you there because I have one 
last question, and I only have about 20 seconds left. Can you 
just address for us without getting into anything that will 
endanger anybody how you go about tracing and contacting 
Ukrainian children in Russia?
    Mr. Kostin. We use different ways. And I cannot disclose 
this information publicly.
    Ms. Wild. Fair enough. I wouldn't want you to do anything 
like that. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your 
testimony here today.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congresswoman Wild. We now proceed 
to the Vice Chairwoman Ann Wagner of Missouri.
    Mrs. Wagner. I thank my colleague, Congressman Wilson, for 
giving me the time. And I thank Chairman McCaul and Ranking 
Member Meeks for prioritizing this urgent matter. And 
Prosecutor General Kostin, thank you for being here today.
    The testimony we heard prior to this hearing was 
devastating. And we are grateful for the work that you were 
doing to bring war criminals to justice. We cannot rest in our 
efforts to target all those in Russia who are complicit in the 
Kremlin's crimes.
    And it is my belief that culpability for the appalling 
atrocities that Russia has committed goes right to the very 
top. Putin and his cronies must pay for the indiscriminate and 
wanton violence they have unleashed on the Ukrainian people, 
including women and innocent children, the ill, infirm, 
elderly, and the most vulnerable. I did, in fact, travel to the 
Ukraine-Poland border.
    It was just over, I guess, a year ago, right, with many 
members on this committee, including Ms. Wild, as millions of 
Ukrainian civilians fled Putin's full scale invasion. We met so 
many brave children and women making a terrifying journey from 
everything they had ever known and loved to become refugees in 
a strange country. And I hope and pray that many of these 
refugees have been able to return home and begin to put back 
together their lives in some way, shape, or form.
    But I had been heartbroken to see the reports that 
thousands of Ukrainian children had been kidnaped and forcibly 
deported to Russia. I will tell you as a mother and a 
grandmother this is absolutely chilling. Furthermore, it is 
genocidal.
    And I believe that the United States should lead the way in 
calling out Putin's regime for these unthinkable crimes. You 
are quite correct, sir, when you say that the world is 
watching. And I believe that history will judge us. Prosecutor 
General Kostin, as you know, to constitute genocide, there must 
be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to eliminate an 
national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Can you provide 
clear examples of Russia's genocidal intent to destroy the 
Ukrainian people?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Wagner, for 
your question. I do not want to read these quotes of Russians, 
but I will do it.
    Putin's former advisor Surkov, quote, ``there is no 
Ukraine. There Ukrainianism. That is to say a peculiar disorder 
of mind surprisingly taken to extremes by a fascination with 
ethnography. Such blood local history. A mess instead of a 
State. There is borscht, Bandera, bandura, and there is no 
nation.'' Surkov was not only one of the advisors of Putin. He 
was also involved in negotiations in Trilateral Contact Group 
so called Minsk Agreement, Normandy format which we are held 
starting from 2014 until----
    Mrs. Wagner. Have you presented this evidence to Secretary 
Blinken? And have you asked him to make a genocide 
determination? And if so, how did he respond?
    Mr. Kostin. Not yet at the moment.
    Mrs. Wagner. I encourage you to do that. And I encourage 
this committee to do the same. What are your office's most 
significant challenges in investigating Russian war crimes and 
their atrocities committed in Ukraine since a full scale 
invasion? And what additional U.S. support would most enhance 
your office's ability to investigate the tens of thousands of 
allegations of war crimes that you have received and facilitate 
effective prosecutions?
    Mr. Kostin. The most challenging is to identify the 
perpetrators, especially in cases where the survivors have 
physical contact. I mean, if they were forcibly detained, not 
about sexual abuse or any torture in other war crimes where 
they saw these people. But if the people were protected, their 
faces were protected, it is not very easy to identify these 
perpetrators.
    In some cases, we have identified the military units. We 
have identified who was the commander of military unit. But we 
need also to identify the perpetrators. In other cases like 
intentional destroying or missile attacks against our critical 
civil infrastructure----
    Mrs. Wagner. Right.
    Mr. Kostin [continuing]. Some of these attacks 1,000 
kilometers far from out border by air forces of Russian 
Federation because these missiles can fly 1,000 kilometers. And 
the consequences of these attacks you know are in some cases 
ten of civilians killed, hundreds of civilians wounded. And we 
need to identify who give coordinates of the object. Who gave 
the order and who initially pushed the button.
    Mrs. Wagner. Well, certainly my time has expired. I 
appreciate the Chair's indulgence. And I would just say this. 
The U.S. must provide whatever technical resource support that 
we can to help you get these prosecutions. And I will yield 
back. Thank you again, sir, very much.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. And in this respect, once again, the 
sharing of intelligence information could be helpful to 
investigate such cases. Thank you.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Chair, Vice Chair Ann 
Wagner for your passion. And we now proceed to Congresswoman 
Dina Titus of Nevada.
    Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. 
Prosecutor General, for your very compelling testimony and the 
people of Ukraine's resistence, resilience, heroism. It has 
impressed all the world and certainly me and this body.
    We are hearing a lot, of course, that the immediate news is 
what Russia is doing in Ukraine and the horrendous impact of 
the human suffering as a result of its war crimes. But we 
really shouldn't be surprised because if you look at the 
history of Russia, it certainly confirms that they are likely 
doing it in Ukraine. You look at Mali. You look at Chechnya. 
You look at Syria. You look at Central African Republic.
    They have been charged with war crimes in all of those 
places. So what they are doing now is more immediate and 
certainly perhaps more involving children. But it is not 
surprising. This is a long history that they have.
    I would ask you, what about some of the independent 
agencies or NGO's? How helpful are they, and what could they be 
doing? Radio Free Europe, Red Cross, Amnesty International, 
Doctors Without Borders, are they there on the ground and being 
helpful?
    Mr. Kostin. First of all, thank you for mentioning Russia 
as a State who used to abuse international law and order. You 
mentioned actually some jurisdictions where Russia is actively 
acting against law and order globally using their criminal 
groups like Wagner Group. And I think that this is the momentum 
where Europe, Ukraine, and United States, and all of our other 
allies should be united in order to put an end for such groups 
like Wagner Group who are earning money illegally in some 
countries of Africa and use this money to kill our people in 
Ukraine and use this money to support those members of Wagner 
Group who commit war crimes against our prisoners of war, 
against our civilians and occupied territories.
    So for this, we need to be united. I think it is momentum 
to do it. For the question you asked, we have strongest support 
from the non-governmental and civil society organizations in 
Ukraine.
    We have a group in my office which is named a group of 
international experts where we have six directions of activity 
with regard to investigation and prosecution of war crimes, 
starting from children, sexual violence, and others, including 
the protection of rights of media journalists who were killed 
and suffered during this war of aggression because 
internationally--I mean, we have foreign journalists who were 
also killed and who are investigating these cases together with 
other--my colleagues from other countries. But this group 
includes more than 40 NGO's and civil society organizations. 
And most of them are supported by grants from the United States 
and from European Union countries.
    And for this, it makes it impossible for them to help us in 
documenting and prosecuting war crimes to help to deal with 
victims and survivors, especially from vulnerable groups. And 
this work is extremely important. We are communicating with 
them on a permanent basis.
    I have a special enjoy in my office who is communicating 
with all our NGO's and civil society organizations. So we are 
united with them. And their support is very important.
    Ms. Titus. I am glad to hear that. That is great. Let me 
ask you about some of Russia's allies like Belarus. Are they 
engaged in this too or should they be held accountable when all 
is said and done?
    Mr. Kostin. We have the citizens of Belarus who are 
identified as war criminals. And we have cases against them, 
even some of them already finished with conviction. I firmly 
remember about one case.
    And we, of course, for us does not matter who from which 
country war criminal is. If war crime is committed on Ukrainian 
land against Ukrainians wherever, we indict and we convict all 
of them. Thank you.
    Ms. Titus. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Titus. We 
now proceed to Congressman Andy Barr of Kentucky.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the witness. 
And I think your testimony here today demonstrates that Russian 
crimes against humanity in Ukraine, it is not just about 
supporting the Ukrainian resistance and the sovereignty of 
Ukraine as a nation and as a people.
    But it is also about countering a systematic and widespread 
attack against civilization. That is what NATO assistance of 
Ukraine is about. It is about certainly supporting the 
Ukrainian resistence in defense of the freedom and sovereignty 
of Ukraine. But it is also a defense of humanity and 
civilization. And I commend your testimony here today.
    We know that throughout history, occupations are expensive 
and that insurgencies are less expensive. Can you talk about 
whether Russia is prepared for a long conflict and whether 
Russia has the ability militarily and economically to support a 
long-term occupation of a population that will fight for them? 
And what has been the reaction of supposedly ethnic Russian 
people in the face of these war crimes in Ukraine?
    Mr. Kostin. Could you--the last part of your question?
    Mr. Barr. Yes, so----
    Mr. Kostin. You mean Russian ethnic people who are citizens 
of Ukraine?
    Mr. Barr. Right. The supposedly Russian ethnic people, are 
they resisting? And does Russia have the capability of 
maintaining a long-term occupation of a population that is 
resistant to their occupation?
    Mr. Kostin. When we are talking about the group of people 
who are potentially the victim of the crime of genocide, we are 
talking about Ukrainians as a Nation. And does not matter the 
ethnicity of Ukrainians we are talking about. So all 
Ukrainians, once again, does not matter who are they by 
ethnicity. They are struggling for Ukrainians sovereignty, 
freedom, and to liberate our country.
    Mr. Barr. As you investigate Russian genocide, we know that 
the Chinese are supporting dual use technology and sanctions of 
Asia by Russia. China is also actively engaging in systematic 
genocide itself against the Uyghur people and Xinjiang. Are we 
seeing China transport any surveillance technology or methods 
that they are using against the Uyghurs to Moscow?
    Mr. Kostin. I think it is more a question for our 
intelligence and for our military. From cases we have in my 
office, I have no information of such scale. But if you have 
such information and if you share with us, of course we will 
start check.
    Mr. Barr. Let me ask you about sanctions. Following the 
invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the United States sanctioned 
Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 
Following the 2014 of Crimea, sanctions were levied against 11 
Russian State security council members. In your opinion, has 
U.S. sanctions effectively cutoff individuals who are enabling 
and supporting these war crimes. Are there individuals that 
would be effective to sanction who the United States or the 
West has not yet sanctioned and who you believe are responsible 
for these war crimes?
    Mr. Kostin. I think that it is extremely important to 
proceed with sanctioning Russians. And first of all, I would 
say, Russian banks, Russian nuclear industry because you all 
know that Russian attacks on Ukrainian nuclear power stations, 
they raise risks globally. And they use it blackmailing 
practically the world.
    And the world should be strong in order to resist this 
blackmailing and sanctioning more on Russian nuclear industry. 
And I will add if you will allow, it is important. In cases of 
deportation of Ukrainian children, we have information about 
dozens or even hundreds of Russian officials even of lower 
level in the regions who were involved in this policy. And 
sanctioning them will also play deterring effect for the 
others, for Russian officials who should think before taking 
part in these war crimes.
    Mr. Barr. Please share with us the identity of those 
Russian officials so that we can share with Treasury and 
recommend sanctioning those individuals who forcibly separated 
children from their families.
    Mr. Kostin. We will do it.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you. I yield. Thank you.
    Mr. Wilson. And thank you very much, Congressman Barr. And 
we now proceed to Congressman Colin Allred of Texas.
    Mr. Allred. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, 
Prosecutor General, for being here today and for your 
incredibly powerful testimony. We held three hearings on this 
topic in the last Congress, including one where you were a 
witness.
    But I am glad that we are holding another one today to make 
sure that the American people can hear again and as many times 
as it takes what Russia and Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine 
and the Ukrainian people. It bears repeating that your office 
has opened 80,000 investigations into war crimes. The Russians 
have caused 22,000 civilian casualties.
    At least 465 children have been killed by them. At least 
120,000 civilian buildings have been destroyed in Ukraine. And 
far worse, as you detailed today, a planned and systematic use 
of rape and torture of Ukrainians, the use of sexual violence 
against Ukrainian women, torture chambers, filed beheadings, 
electric shock, severe beatings, forcing Ukrainians to listen 
to and sing pro-Russian songs, and maybe worst of all, the 
abduction of nearly 20,000 that we know of Ukrainian children 
taken from their families, indoctrinated to erase their 
Ukrainian identity.
    I have constituents in Dallas, Texas. I ask them to think 
of their families. I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old son. 
There is nothing that I would not do to get them back, and I 
know you feel the same way. And we support you in that.
    This put simply as many of us have said today is genocide. 
So when I hear voices in this Congress or other leaders in this 
country question our support to Ukraine, I wonder if they have 
forgotten who we are. We are the United States of America.
    If we can do something to try and prevent this, to push 
back against, then we should. It is who we are. It says a lot 
about who we are. And in addition to congratulating the 
Ukrainian people on your incredible bravery, the way and the 
skill with which you have used the aid that we have given you, 
also say that President Biden has done an incredible job 
putting together an international coalition that has allowed us 
to get to this point where I know you will win. I look forward 
to celebrating your victory.
    I have a question that is maybe not directly in your area 
of expertise. But I wanted to ask it because I think it is 
important to be said here. What do you think the Russian people 
know that is what is being done in their name in Ukraine?
    Mr. Kostin. It is quite difficult to answer properly 
because no one of us know what is in their heads. First week, a 
full scale invasion. Millions of Ukrainians tried to reach 
their contacts in Russia, relatives, friends, colleagues, 
trying to reach them directly and said, look, stop. What are 
you doing?
    And very few, very, very few, maybe a tip, smallest tip of 
the iceberg, a big iceberg of these contacts were successful. 
Many of us were shocked because where with whom we communicated 
for tens of years. And then immediately these people just like 
changed the other side.
    So it is quite difficult for me to answer your question. 
But I will give you my personal suggestion that even members of 
Russian authorities have not proper information about what is 
going on, on the battlefield. We knew this from the very first 
meetings at the end of February when Russia asked for 
negotiations.
    And when we said that, look, there are a lot of bodies of 
your servicemen. We are human beings. We are ready to return 
them back to you for their families too.
    And they said, you are lying. There couldn't be so many 
bodies as we mentioned to them. So this is very difficult to 
understand what is in their mind.
    But I think that maybe some of them are so deeply inside 
their propaganda, they are victims of their propaganda that 
they even are afraid of hearing the truth. But this time will 
come. The greatest tyrannies of the world in the world history 
fall down in 1 day.
    And this day will come. And these people will open their 
ears and will open their eyes to see the truth to understand 
that they are also responsible because it was a policy of their 
country. And they need to take this responsibility.
    Mr. Allred. Thank you, sir. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Wilson. Ad thank you very much, Congressman Allred. We 
now proceed to Congressman Bill Huizenga of Michigan.
    Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Prosecutor General, for being 
here. I am going to make a statement, and then I have a couple 
of questions for you. First and foremost, I believe that this 
is an illegal and very dangerous act that Russia has undertaken 
here in the past year.
    And it must be condemned, and I do condemn it. I do want to 
explore, though, and this is not a differentiation. But I want 
you to understand that despite some of what my colleagues are 
saying, not everybody is convinced of the progress that has 
been made in Ukraine.
    In fact, this is not a concern that is limited to the 
United States. You know this. Germany had held back, whether it 
would be in military or in other areas.
    People in Switzerland, people in France, people throughout 
Europe have had to explain to their voters and to their 
taxpayers where their money is going. That is not anything 
different than what we have to do here in the United States. In 
fact, I think it is incumbent upon us to be transparent and 
open and honest with our own taxpayers where billions of 
dollars of their hard earned money is going.
    And I happen to believe that this is the right direction to 
go. But that does not mean we shouldn't stop explaining and 
should not stop being transparent about that. Last week, I 
happened to be in Switzerland and in Geneva.
    I met with the International Red Cross, ICRC. I met with 
folks from the Human Rights Commission as well as for the 
Commission on Refugees exploring what was going on, what has 
been the European response, what has been the U.S. response. 
Certainly, the relationship that the Poles have shown, Ukraine 
has been almost second to none it seems, right, as they have 
been accepting refugees.
    I am pleased to hear and I think many of us are pleased to 
hear about the progress that has been made on these accusations 
of corruptions within Ukraine. Frankly, I think Ukraine 
deserves--or I am sorry. Ukraine, yes, deserves that 
explanation to the world.
    And that is why you went through the efforts that you did 
in Brussels and in Europe explaining what has gone on. So 
please do not misconstrue this or please do not accept some of 
the rhetoric that is out there that somehow if you question 
this and want documentation that somehow that is anti-American 
or anti-Ukrainian. That certainly isn't the case.
    Along the lines with the ICRC, that was a fascinating 
meeting to have. And to hear the heartbreaking testimony that 
we heard earlier today about these children especially that 
have been taken from Ukraine. And I heard one of my colleagues 
throw out a 20,000 children number. But do you have a more 
accurate count of how many children have been taken from 
Ukraine?
    Mr. Kostin. The number is changing every day. So it is 
close to 20,000 which only 361 returned home.
    Mr. Huizenga. OK. And I fully understand why you do not 
want to go into the mechanisms and the methods of how you are 
reaching out. I am wondering, though, are there international 
organizations like ICRC which is responsible for connecting 
official POWs, prisoners of war. But are they involved or any 
other international NGO's involved with helping to try to make 
those connections?
    Mr. Kostin. They should be involved because it is their 
primary obligation. And we as a governmental agency are in full 
contact with the ICRC. The only problem is the result. So we 
are in close contact with everyone. And the ICRC as one of the 
organizations which is entitled to help in all humanitarian 
layers, all humanitarian dimensions for the people who suffer 
from war.
    Mr. Huizenga. Are there any others, Human Rights Commission 
or other NGO's?
    Mr. Kostin. Yes, of course. All others, Human Rights 
Commission from the United Nations.
    Mr. Huizenga. What can we do to help bolster that request 
that----
    Mr. Kostin. I think that these organizations have unique 
opportunity to talk and to meet Russians--I mean, Russian 
authorities. And they could raise their voice to Russian 
authorities as a matter of returning our children back. I think 
it could be a good start for them, and they have full 
opportunities to help us with this. And we are in contact with 
them.
    Mr. Huizenga. Great. And I know my time has expired. I just 
want to hear very briefly your commitment to make sure that 
ICRC and other organizations are being granted access to 
Russian POWs much as you would rightly demand that ICRC and 
others are having access, constant access, not just periodic or 
once, one time sort of access to Ukrainian POWs that either be 
in Eastern Ukraine or in Russia.
    Mr. Kostin. We have sufficient legislation and sufficient 
procedures which enable ICRC to visit prisoners of war of 
Russia which are held in Ukrainian facilities. If I will know 
any problem, let them contact me and we will sort it out.
    Mr. Huizenga. I appreciate that, and I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul [presiding]. Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Minnesota, Mr. Phillips.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Keating. Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask the 
gentleman to allow me 20 seconds to respond.
    Chairman McCaul. Would the gentleman yield 20 seconds?
    Mr. Phillips. Sure, I yield.
    Mr. Keating. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just 
want to clear the air. This committee--and I apologize to the 
prosecutor general. You weren't here in this committee 2 weeks 
ago when we had a hearing, but the rest of us were.
    It was clear. We had the Inspector General's reports and 
evidence from the State Department, from USAID, and from the 
Department of Defense and a third party, Deloitte, accounting 
firm, all looking at all the moneys that were expended by 
American taxpayers. And that money was--their report was it was 
spent with responsibility, full accountability, and there was 
no evidence, no evidence to the contrary. I yield to Mr. 
Phillips and thank him.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for 
the recognition. I am disgusted and I am horrified. I have 
served in this institution for 4 years, and today changed me.
    Horrified and disgusted by what I saw on that screen, the 
video, the atrocities. Horrified and disgusted by listening to 
the most heartbreaking testimony I have ever heard by survivors 
of Vladimir Putin's war crimes. And frankly, horrified and 
disgusted that a colleague of ours on this esteemed committee 
would inject Hunter Biden in today's discussion.
    It is sickening. It is disrespectful. This is not about 
Hunter Biden. This is about Vladimir Putin. It is about 
genocide. It is about depravity, and it is about war crimes.
    And that is why we are here. And to the survivors that we 
heard from today and to the people of Ukraine, I want to assure 
you that on a very bipartisan basis I assure you that these 
barbaric acts have no place in the civilized world. And the 
United States will be your steadfast partner in bringing the 
war criminals in Russia to justice.
    That is why we are here today. And I ask and invite and 
encourage my colleagues to focus on that. Mr. Kostin, thank you 
for being with us. I would like to ask a question about the 
Wagner Group.
    As the ranking member of the Middle East, North African, 
Central Asian Subcommittee here in Congress, I have seen what 
Wagner mercenaries commit horrific abuses and war crimes 
throughout the Middles East for years. They are doing it again, 
I believe, in Ukraine. They are essentially agents of the 
Russian State I think we will all agree. So my question is, are 
their war crimes also an extension of the Russian government?
    Mr. Kostin. Once again, I am sorry. Are there war crimes--
--
    Mr. Phillips. Are there war crimes, Wagner war crimes----
    Mr. Kostin. Yes.
    Mr. Phillips [continuing]. Extension of the Russian 
government policy?
    Mr. Kostin. That makes sense. I understand. Thank you. 
Thank you. Thank you for your words of support, and thank you 
for your questions. This is actually the matter of some of our 
investigations because you know that they are very careful, how 
to say, hiding the financial roots and their relations between 
their groups in Africa, in some other countries.
    We know about Caribbean now at the moment and their actions 
in Russia and in Syria and now in Ukraine. So for that, I ask 
for the very comprehensive and unified joint efforts because we 
need to not only to fight against them to put an end to their 
actions but also to find evidence, enough evidence that they 
are the part of Russian governmental machine as one of its 
proxies. For that, once again, we need support on the level of 
investigation prosecution and findings on also financial level.
    Mr. Phillips. Have you found coordination between the 
Russian military and Wagner?
    Mr. Kostin. Yes. On the battlefield, of course, their 
military part, they are just the part of Russian regular army. 
So they are coordinated by the same military command. But we 
are also talking about the other part of Wagner, not only which 
are used on the initial battlefield but the other part which is 
involved in committing war crimes against our prisoners of war, 
against our civil population unoccupied territories. So there 
are several angles of their activity.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, sir. And my time is running out. I 
just want to encourage this committee and this institution and 
this country and the entire free world to employ what Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt referred to as the arsenal of democracy, to 
ensure that not only does Ukraine survive but thrives and that 
we pursue every single war criminal in this world. We will not 
rest until we do so. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you so much.
    Chairman McCaul. Chair recognizes Ms. Young Kim.
    Mrs. Kim of California. Thank you, Chairman, for holding 
this hearing and for arranging this opportunity to hear from 
survivors of Russian war crimes. Hearing those testimoneys from 
our witnesses was really heartbreaking, and my heart breaks for 
the victims. And I join my colleagues in demanding 
accountability. Mr. Kostin, thank you so much for joining us 
today and answering these questions. But I want to ask you 
first of the approximately 80,000 investigations that have been 
opened, how many of those that your office have been able to 
prosecute to the final verdict as of today since the start of 
the full scale invasion?
    Mr. Kostin. For the more than or about 80,000 incidents of 
war crimes which we registered at the moment, we have 
identified 310 potential perpetrators. And we informed them of 
our suspicion. We have finished cases against 152 potential war 
criminals. So their indictments were sent to courts. And up to 
date, we have 31 Russian war criminal convicted by Ukrainian 
courts in the course of this war.
    Mrs. Kim of California. You have a lot of work there. There 
are crimes committed against humanity. We want to see justice, 
and especially as we heard these testimoneys and hearing you 
detail the stories of rape and sexual violence against 
Ukrainian women and especially against girls, it is 
heartbreaking.
    So how many of those cases involve sexual violence against 
women? And how many of those cases have your office been able 
to prosecute? And are these numbers reflective of the true 
number of victims of sexual violence at the hands of the 
Russians?
    You have only identified 31 out of the 80,000 that you are 
investigating, 310 identified, 152 potential. And you said 31 
committed by Russians. I mean, it is a very small number that 
so far that has been identified compared to what we are seeing.
    Mr. Kostin. The issue, I mentioned 31 cases which have 
conviction verdicts of courts. And some of them are held in 
absentia because we have identified the perpetrators. We have 
full set of evidence.
    But we cannot wait if someday we will capture them. But the 
procedure of cases in absentia is a little bit longer because 
of procedural limitations. So I think that in course of this 
work to convict already 31 person where in many cases it is 
very difficult for us to identify is the result which it is 
respected actually by Ukrainians.
    We have thousands of the war criminals whom we identified. 
But we have no full set of evidence. That is why I am asking 
also for intelligence information. And I could comment on 
conflict-related sexual violence if you wish. We have----
    Mrs. Kim of California. Sure, yes. Let's do that. But I do 
want to talk about the other areas since the beginning of the 
war. Russia has intentionally targeted apartment buildings, 
playgrounds, malls, train stations, schools where Ukrainians 
were trying to flee the fighting.
    And they show no regard for the lives of women and 
children. And it even bombed the building where there was a 
clear word written, children, right? It was so large, so bold 
that you can see it from the satellite in space. These are war 
crimes, plain and simple. So what do you believe is Russia's 
goal in terrorizing Ukrainian civilians this way?
    Mr. Kostin. This war shows that Russia--many of Russians, 
they are dehumanized. This is maybe the only possible 
explanations why are they so brutal. Because when I spoke with 
the survivors, you met only two of them today.
    We meet with others. And you cannot understand absolutely 
why they are doing this. Maybe just because they want to 
destroy Ukraine as a country and as a Nation.
    Maybe they have been told that people in Ukraine are 
waiting for them. And when they understand that this is not 
true, they start to kill. They start to torture. They start to 
do--I mean, bombing this theater, and this was a bomb you 
mentioned even from satellite.
    But this was bombing on a very low height so that the pilot 
of this aircraft could see by his eyes that it is children, 
dity, in Russian and Ukrainian. So I suppose it was even 
written in Russian, dity, yes, by Russian letters. So for me, 
it is very difficult to understand why are they behaving like 
this.
    The only possible explanation is that they just want to 
erase Ukraine and Ukrainians from the land because the same 
patterns, the same conduct which we all saw in first months of 
war in Kyiv region, in Bucha, Irpin, and others. And this was 
world known. And when we saw the same after liberation in 
Kharkiv region in September and we saw the same cases, May, 
June, July, August, September, and then Kherson, November.
    And then our brave and courageous survivor today, this 
crime was committed against her January this year because she 
was still on the occupied territory of Kherson region at that 
time. So 1 year, same conduct. Even if they know that these war 
crimes were committed by their servicemen, by their people 
before they proceed to do it, even knowing that all the world 
is condemning such brutal behavior. So maybe because they 
really want to kill all of us.
    Mrs. Kim of California. That is just heartbreaking to hear 
this. Thank you so much. Thanks. I know we went way over our 
time. I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. But it was well worth it. Chair now 
recognizes Ms. Sara Jacobs.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Prosecutor 
General. Thank you for being here and testifying. And thank you 
to you and your team for all your hard work.
    I know it is not easy to hear these stories day in and day 
out and to see all of this evidence. So we really do want to 
say thank you for everything that you and your team are doing. 
And please take that back to them.
    As all my colleagues have said, the war crimes we have 
heard about today and that we have read about in the news are 
horrifying and gut wrenching. And we know there have already 
been over 22,000 civilian casualties and about 17.6 Ukrainians 
who are in need of humanitarian assistance. And we know that 
the war is still going on.
    And as everyone here has said today, accountability and 
justice is so incredibly important. That is why I am supportive 
of the ICC investigation into the war crimes that are 
happening. And actually last Congress, I introduced and was 
able to get legislation passed that allows the U.S. to provide 
support to that ICC investigation. But we know that support 
hasn't happened yet. And I was wondering if you could talk to 
the importance of the ICC investigation and why international 
support and especially U.S. support is so important.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for this question. Once again, when I 
met first time with Karim Khan, it was just few weeks upon my 
appointment. It was in August or beginning of September.
    And when we talk about our cooperation, I understand that 
he is very committed. I understand that his team is very 
strong. And when we started to also to prioritize the cases and 
when we choose these cases of deportation of children as a 
matter of priority, where there are many others, we understand 
that we will have the result we have at the moment, first in 
history.
    The incumbent president of permanent member of Security 
Council is named as alleged war criminal. I understand how it 
is important this support because the level of attention, the 
level of awareness to war crimes which are prosecuted by the 
prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is much higher 
than for some cases which are prosecuted by us on the national 
level. I already mentioned the complementary role of the ICC.
    But we discussed this with Karim. And I am ready even to 
transfer the cases to the ICC which we can finalize internally 
because there are cases about war crimes which are world known. 
And the survivors of these cases from my point of view should 
receive a measure of justice even on international level.
    And we will fully cooperate with the team of Karim Khan. We 
even declared or, how to say, publicly announced that we create 
task forces for specific war crimes which could be later 
transferred to the ICC. So in this respect, full support to all 
endeavors of the ICC. Please know that if you support the ICC, 
you are supporting us.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. And I hope that those who are 
standing in the way of that assistance getting transferred hear 
what you have to say today. Really quickly, given the numerous 
organizations and actors currently documenting atrocities, how 
is your office preserving the chain of evidence and ensuring 
the documentation is viable? What more can the U.S. do to help 
you with that process and also to help make sure that the 
survivors and potential witnesses are getting everything they 
need to be able to provide the kind of testimony you need?
    Mr. Kostin. First of all, once again, we need IT solutions 
in order to not to lose any piece of electronic evidence, 
digital evidence we have. This is now one of the most strategic 
issues I am dealing with. With regard to witnesses, victims, 
and survivors, of course, we have changed approach to 
prosecution, for instance, of conflict-related sexual violence 
crimes.
    I have changed the strategy of investigation of these 
crimes. All our work now is survivor centered. We use the 
principles of the Murad Code and we train internationally, also 
train our investigators and prosecutors how to communicate with 
the survivors of sexual violence.
    This is one of the matter of my priorities, and I just go 
ahead. The issue is that the survivors from vulnerable groups, 
they need much more care and treatment, not only protection of 
on their support for the matter of justice for them but also as 
a matter of their care for psychological support, financial 
living support. We are dealing with these cases in Ukraine, and 
usually we have support from NGO's and from also State 
institutions.
    Some of these project are supported by the First Lady who 
is personally dealing with shelters for the victims and 
survivors of the sexual violence crimes. So we have a system. 
But even some case we will need and we will say that it will be 
important for these victims and survivors to feel even safer 
than they are. Maybe transferring them to the other countries 
would be proper help for them.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you again for all of your work. And 
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentlelady yields back. Chair 
recognizes Ms. Kathy Manning.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 
brave victims for sharing their heartbreaking stories. And I 
want to thank you, Prosecutor General Kostin, for the 
extraordinary work that you are doing.
    Yesterday, people around the world observed Yom HaShoah, 
Holocaust Memorial Day, a day to remember and honor the victims 
of the most well organized, efficient, and effective genocide 
in history and to repeat the vow never again. And yet we sit 
here today and hear about horrific atrocities that are being 
inflicted on innocent people, on children by another tyrant and 
ordinary men who have become monsters under his direction. We 
cannot sit idly by.
    We must reiterate the vow never again. And we must make 
sure the world knows about these ungodly atrocities. And we 
most hold the perpetrators accountable. Mr. Kostin, thank you 
for the difficult work you are doing to try to hold these 
people accountable.
    We know that the ICC has indicted Vladimir Putin as well as 
Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights 
for overseeing the horrific abduction and forced adoption of 
hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children. It is unthinkable. 
As a mother, I can barely stand to hear what has been going on. 
So which other leading Russian military officials or others do 
you think should be included on this list?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for your words of support and thank 
you for your question. We are investigating cases against many 
Russian officials of all of the levels. And of course, we are 
not only investigating and prosecuting cases related to 
deportation of children together in coordination with the ICC.
    There are a lot of other cases. I cannot tell you at the 
moment the names. But for some cases, we already reached the 
commanders of very high level who orchestrated the atrocities 
committed in Kyiv region, cities like Bucha who orchestrated 
and who commanded the missile attacks against civil buildings, 
multi-storied residential buildings which cost more than 100 
civilians killed in three cases because we found that these 
three attacks which were held in Dnipro, the Vinnytsia, 
Serhiivka which is near Odessa, and the Amstor Mall in 
Kremenchuk where people were inside the mall at that time.
    They use the very rare type of missile which is in 
possession of only one military unit in Russia. And we informed 
on suspicion the commander of this unit of very high level. So 
we are going ahead and we are moving. And in this respect in 
order to establish the command chain, we extremely need more 
intelligence information to be used for cases.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you. And we think it is important that 
everyone who has been part of committing these atrocities be 
held accountable. Following orders should not be an excuse. And 
we need to make sure that all of these people are held 
accountable. Thank you for your work in pursuing that.
    Mr. Kostin, last June, Attorney General Merrick Garland 
appointed Eli Rosenbaum who is well known for tracking down and 
prosecuting World War II Nazi cases. As head of the new DOJ War 
Crimes Accountability Team in Ukraine, can you talk about his 
cooperation with your office and whether there is precedent for 
prosecuting those responsible for Russia's unprovoked invasion 
for the crime of aggression?
    Mr. Kostin. I am really grateful for Eli and his team for 
work they are doing. I would say that my colleagues are in 
daily contact with Eli and his team. And the experienced 
professionals from Eli's team not only help us with advice.
    We are also dealing with specific investigation of specific 
war crimes, not only in relation to Ukrainians but also against 
the citizens of the United States. So we are in very close 
cooperation. And I am really grateful for Eli and his team for 
this level of support.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you again for all of your extraordinary 
hard work. We are so appreciative. My time has expired. I yield 
back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentlelady yields back. Chair 
recognizes Mr. Mills.
    Mr. Mills. . Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your 
time. I know it has been a very long day. I would like to just 
kind of ask a few things if I may which is would a decision by 
the United States designate the Wagner Group a foreign 
terrorist organization assist your efforts to hold accountable 
its members who have committed atrocities in Ukraine and 
support your efforts?
    Mr. Kostin. I think I fully support this idea. I have 
already mentioned this in my address. I think it is not only 
about holding them accountable for war crimes committed. It is 
also about to prevent the other potential war crimes which 
could be committed not only in Ukraine but worldwide.
    This designation of Wagner Group as an international 
terrorist organization could help all of us to stop the 
activity of this organization which raise a lot of risks, not 
only to Ukraine but also to many other countries of the 
civilized world. You know that they are not only in Africa. 
They are not only in Asia. They are now in Caribbean.
    And I know that I believe that response should be unified. 
For us, it will be extremely helpful because the consequences 
will mean that they will have more difficulties in financing 
their operations in Ukraine. And it will save lives of our 
people.
    Mr. Mills. That is exactly right. And as you mentioned, 
they are not just in Ukraine. And they have started to get a 
foothold in Caribbean and especially there in Haiti which is 
very close to the American borders that we need to be 
considering.
    And I do look at them very much in the same way that I look 
at the IRGC or the Quds Force who is being utilized as proxy 
militias across the Nation to not only look at trying to 
buildup foreign internal strategies to fight against Americans 
or to fight against those of that nation but really to be a 
mercenary group who is there to do nothing but terrorize and 
murder. So I appreciate your answer very much. And I hope that 
we can support in that effort.
    During the past year, more than 33 verdicts were issued for 
high level corruption in addition to hundreds of investigations 
and dozens of indictments. What kind of progress has Ukraine 
made in implementing the rule of law reforms set forth by the 
EU last June as preconditions for negotiations? And has your 
fight against corruption advanced the rule of law in furthering 
these conditions?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for your question. Of course, we have 
priorities during wartime. And the priorities of my office, of 
course, are investigation and prosecution of war crimes, 
fighting against collaborators and traitors, and fight against 
corruption.
    In my inaugural speech before the parliament last June, I 
pointed out that Ukraine has two enemies, external Russia and 
its proxies and its collaborators and internal corruption. And 
we need to win both fights. Immediate upon my appointment as a 
prosecutor general, I appointed the Chair of Specialized Anti-
Corruption Prosecutors Office.
    What we have during last month, we have appointed new 
Director of National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine after 
successful open selection process. The High Anti-Corruption 
Court has elected their president. They were trying to do it 
within last year.
    They are independent. They needed to elect. So we have all 
three bodies equipped with their chairs. In March this year, 
GRECO as an organization of the Council of Europe has excluded 
Ukraine from the blacklist of countries which are not fighting 
against corruption for our joint efforts combating corruption 
in high level officials, including members of the parliament 
judges and prosecutors.
    Mr. Mills. Well, I really appreciate that you are paying 
such close attention when it comes to the prosecution and the 
continued investigations into the corruption that is going on 
in Ukraine. I want to followup with this noting that one of 
your predecessors, the prosecutor general was removed when he 
was investigating a company that is well known called Burisma. 
Will you be looking into opening that investigation again and 
ensuring that any type of corruption that Burisma was involved 
in that it would be adequately processed, reviewed, and if need 
be, prosecuted with reports back to the United States if there 
is any of our personnel who were involved?
    Mr. Mills. I have already answered this question during 
this hearing. This is not a topic of our discussion, and I have 
already answered your question about our fight against 
corruption and I can give you more examples. But our hearings 
are related to war crimes, and I will concentrate my answers on 
this topic for now.
    Mr. Mills. With that, I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. Chair recognizes Mr. Stanton.
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Chairman. Mr. Prosecutor 
General, thank you for being here today. For more than a year, 
the world has born witness to the atrocities committed by 
Russian forces to carry out Vladimir Putin's unjust and 
inhumane war.
    Many of these atrocities take place far from the 
battlefield. Russian forces at the direction of the Kremlin 
have targeted civilian shelters, even hospitals and refugees 
seeking safe harbor. They have kidnaped thousands of children, 
separating them from their families, caretakers, and country 
all to try to erase their Ukrainian identity.
    They have raped, tortured, and massacred thousands of 
innocent Ukrainians. These kinds of acts defy humanity. They 
are barbaric, and they are carried out by coward who are losing 
this war to a proud and patriotic people.
    The United States stands with the people of Ukraine who 
have a right to seek justice for the horrific war crimes 
committed against them. Without justice, without 
accountability, there can be no true healing. Mr. Kostin, your 
office, the Office of Prosecutor General, has identified over 
70,000 incidents of war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine 
resulting from Russia's invasion. Given the huge scale of the 
challenge at hand and your finite resources, how do you 
prioritize which crimes to investigate?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for your question. Of course we 
prioritize. And many of the numbers of incidents of war crimes 
which are registered are the cases where private property is 
destroyed or damaged. And this I encourage people to register 
these cases because even if there is a missile attack and it 
could be a like a miracle that no one suffered or no one is 
killed.
    But it could be, like, hundreds of apartments are damaged 
or destroyed. In order for these people, these civilians to 
receive compensation or reparations, they need to prove that 
this damage was caused by the war crime. That is why a 
substantial number of these cases are cases about the 
destroying and damaging of civil property but prioritizing of 
course the cases where civilians are killed. Of course, the old 
missile attacks, of course, cases where civilians were 
tortured, raped, humiliated, forcibly deported, so any time of 
war crime where civilians are harmed are our priority.
    Mr. Stanton. What resources or expertise can the United 
States and other partners provide to support the investigation 
and prosecution of war crimes committed in Ukraine?
    Mr. Kostin. First of all, we need political support. That 
is why I am here. And support to establish special tribunal for 
the crime of aggression as a leadership crime. Support to all 
of our endeavors on international level.
    It is not only about actually the ICC. It is also about 
more than 20 countries who open their national investigation 
with regard to war crimes committed by Russia, including the 
Department of Justice of United States. And we are dealing with 
our colleagues here with regard to specific war crimes they are 
helping us to investigate.
    And of course, the equipment we have already in place. Last 
year, we have not only created war crimes department in my 
central office. We have opened war crimes departments in nine 
officers which are regional offices which are close to the 
crime scenes.
    With the help of our partners, we equip them with all 
necessary equipment. What we need a part of IT solutions I 
mentioned, we need forensic equipment. We need DNA laboratories 
much more than we have now.
    We need more forensic equipment which will simplify and 
speed up the process of investigation. And as a matter of 
building new prosecutors' offices and new prosecutorial 
services which would be victims and survivors oriented and 
centered, we need rebuilding of more than 100 regional offices 
of my Service on the territories which were under occupation. 
This will be also a strong signal to Ukrainians that 
persecutors are close to them and they are ready to help.
    Mr. Stanton. All right. Thank you for that through answer. 
My time is up, so I will yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. Mr. Lawler is 
recognized.
    Mr. Lawler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Prosecutor 
General, thank you for being here with us. First and foremost, 
the Kremlin's war on the Ukrainian people is a genocide. Let's 
call it what it is. Russia has launched attaches against 
Ukrainian civilian populations, targeting homes, schools, 
hospitals, and other residential gathering areas.
    Russian troops have committed mass murder such as the 
massacre in Bucha. And they have admitted to raping Ukrainian 
women to prevent them from having anymore children. Under 
Putin's orders, Russia has committed a targeted ethnic 
cleansing of the Ukrainian people, unfortunately qualifying 
this abuse as genocide under Article 2 of the UN's Genocide 
Convention. How has the Ukrainian government responded to this 
genocide and what can the U.S. and international community do 
to make this designation official?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We have 
opened a structural investigation on the crime of genocide in 
my office. We, of course, understand that on international 
level, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over 
Russian Federation and its perpetrators with regard to the 
crime of genocide.
    The other international venue could be International Court 
of Justice. We all understand and we very carefully examine all 
previous experience of cases of genocide and making the 
perpetrators liable or accountable for the crime of genocide on 
international level, previous cases of the ICC and former 
international tribunals. We have a great team of experts at the 
moment who help us to build the case of genocide.
    My personal understanding as prosecutory general, we have 
no right to lose such case. That is why we need to be 150 
percent prepared for such case. For that, we will need a 
substantial support, first of all.
    We all understand that we are talking about crime which is 
a legal issue. We are talking about evidence which is the legal 
issue and you can help us with collecting this evidence and 
your experts are working with us. And your experts are working 
with us, and they will be more with the support of your 
agencies.
    What we will need is political support because for many 
lawyers, it is important to feel that they are not alone, that 
they are backed by politicians not only by their words but 
their words backed with arguments, some of them you have 
already mentioned. So political support on the left of 
parliament is extremely important. Political support dealing 
with international organizations like U.N. commissions, like, 
others in order to send a signal that the crimes committed by 
Russian officials against Ukrainians have the element of 
genocide.
    I absolutely agree with you. This is a genocide. Even the 
case of first deportation of Ukrainian children and their 
adoption in Russia is the genocide in its nature. But we need 
to be more prepared, and the political support is extremely 
important in this case.
    Mr. Lawler. Appreciate your answer. The independent 
International Commission of Inquiry established by the U.N. to 
examine the conduct of Russia's war in Ukraine found that 
Russian troops committed atrocities against Ukrainian children, 
including rape, torture and unlawful confinement, and 
abductions. This is obviously disturbing and atrocious in 
nature. And it is unacceptable.
    Almost equally disturbing is Russia's forced deportation of 
tens of thousands of Ukrainian children into Russia. Obviously, 
we have talked about that throughout this hearing. What is it 
that you would like the international community to do to assist 
you in your efforts on that?
    Mr. Kostin. I would support the procedure of the work of 
U.N. commissions, including the commission for inquiry. And if 
they will also concentrate on the cases of genocide because 
they have such experience which could be useful and important 
for our investigations.
    Mr. Lawler. OK. Thank you. Unfortunately, my time has 
expired. I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields back. Ms. Madeleine 
Dean is recognized.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman 
McCaul, Ranking Member Meeks for holding this hearing. And 
thank you, Prosecutor General Kostin, for you testimony, for 
the powerful testimony of the victims whose voices were lifted 
here earlier this morning.
    More importantly, thank you for your work and the work of 
all of your team. We are with you. United States is with you. 
And your purpose here is solid to shine a light on this series 
of war crimes that maybe this will be elevated appropriately to 
be called what it is, genocide.
    We must be with you. And I am very proud of the United 
States for being a part of what is now more than 50 nations, 
civilized nations who recognize the threat to you, to your 
civilians, to you soldiers, to your citizens, to your 
sovereignty is our fight. It is our fight.
    We use an expression here, Prosecutor General, called I 
associate myself with the words of my colleagues. So I 
associate myself particularly with the powerful opening words 
of both the ranking member and the chair. I do not associate 
myself with some of the lines of question that had nothing, 
nothing to do with war crimes that you are telling us about, 
that you are illuminating unspeakable, soul crushing crimes.
    I do not associate myself for those who come in for a 
political stunt, clearly did not hear the testimony, and leave 
the room. Having said that, I do not want to force you to 
repeat things. I know I was running to a vote and I heard that 
you were talking about survivor centered approach.
    Could you tell us a little bit more? I am particularly 
thinking about the children, the 361 have been brought home. 
How do we help them? How is the world beginning to help them? 
And of course, we have to get the others home as well as the 
women and girls who have been tortured, who have been raped, 
and the families who have suffered that and even more. What is 
a survivor centered approach?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for your question and thank you for 
your words of support. The survivor centered approach means 
that all our investigators and prosecutors should change their 
approach from the inherited Soviet style regressive system 
where the main aim of the law enforcement agencies is to find 
the criminal, to capture, and to send him or her to jail 
whereas the interest of the victims and survivors where in many 
cases somewhere aside. And some starting from sometimes people 
just start to forget about them.
    But we understand that the victims of this war and the 
stories you heard today, the video which has been shown today, 
it really opened hearts of any human being in order to help to 
support, to assist, to protect them. And this is a unique 
moment not only for the survivors of war crimes but at large to 
all Ukrainians that in peacetime after the war and maybe even 
in course of war, the victims and survivors of all crimes 
should feel that if their rights are breached that their 
interests will be in center of attention of the government, 
mainly law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. That is why 
during my last visit in January, I have a meeting, one of the 
meetings with the team of Merrick Garland in Department of 
Justice.
    And they introduced me their approach to victims and 
survivors. And I immediately took this, brought this back him. 
And we now already concept nots on coordinating our 
communication with victims and survivors. As a pilot project, 
we will use this approach vis-a-vis victims and survivors of 
war crimes.
    But my idea is to extend it to all victim and survivors of 
all crimes to change the philosophy of criminal justice of 
Ukraine for the sake of Ukrainian people. We are now starting 
process of selection of the people who will coordinate, 
communication with victims and survivors. We will go through 
training of this specialist with the help of our international 
friends and allies. And I hope this will be for the sake of all 
Ukrainians.
    Ms. Dean. Well, I thank you for that because my next 
question was going to be to followup. You said the Department 
of Justice, Merrick Garland, has provided, in your words, 
unprecedented support. Clearly, that is one example.
    I do not know if there are others you are able to talk 
about. But I will say that we will continue to press in 
appropriate ways to say we must continue to support you, 
Ukraine, and the people of Ukraine. I have very little time 
left.
    What have you not been able to convey to us? You have 
conveyed things so very powerfully. But is there anything else 
you wanted to add?
    Mr. Kostin. Last time, I was asked at some occasion in the 
United States, what is the most important request from you, the 
most important message? And usually, my colleagues start, of 
course, with weapons and ammunition, humanitarian and financial 
support, support for our all endeavors to seek justice. I said, 
no, I will start with something else.
    The main thing we need is unity. If we will have unity, we 
will have ammunition, we will have financial support, we will 
have humanitarian support on the level of people to each other. 
And unity from my view means that we will stand together 
nevertheless. Even if we are not 100 percent satisfied about 
each other, we will stand together until we win in both of 
these fights, fight for our territorial integrity and 
sovereignty and fight for justice for all victims and survivors 
of this war. So my work is unity.
    Ms. Dean. Unity.
    [Speaking foreign language.]
    Mr. Kostin. [Speaking foreign language.]
    Ms. Dean. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentlelady yields. Chair recognizes 
Dr. McCormick.
    Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I really 
appreciate you being here today. The testimony was moving to 
me. War is a terrible reality.
    I just returned from Ukraine about a week ago. I was able 
to first see the pictures, hear the stories. But there is 
nothing like hearing from people who have witnessed it first 
hand.
    There is no way I can epitomized what you all have been 
through firsthand and the stories that with raw emotion are 
told in front of us absolutely make an impact. And I know that 
takes a lot of bravery to share that. So thank you for that, 
for all the witnesses here today.
    I will say that evidence that surprised me, though, is just 
hearing about how it is kind of a genocide and that Putin is 
very much aware of this and very much supports it and very much 
this has been widespread, not just individual. In every war, 
there is bad things that happen. We know this just by history.
    But to see it widespread and condoned inside a military 
unit really is something that we do not see in modern warfare a 
whole lot of. So this stands alone. I would make the case that 
we are not just obligated to you because of a nuclear treaty or 
because NATO universally voted to support your country, and not 
even because we should finish what we started or because we 
have a moral obligation because of what is happening there.
    Because you have invited us into this knowing that you are 
being unfairly treated and in fact raped and pillaged. And the 
degradation of your society is at stake. So I am with you.
    With that said, we haven't talked much about Crimea. Now we 
talked about the rest of Ukraine because that is kind of the 
more contemporary issue, the thing that we talk about. Have you 
seen widespread egregious behavior behind that area of Ukraine 
or the disputed territories, people who are tortured and 
treated in the same unjust fashions as happened in the eastern 
front?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for your question. I thank you for 
your words of support. First of all, we have a lot of--I would 
say thousands of criminal cases with regard to violation of the 
human rights of Ukrainian citizens who are still in Crimea.
    Many of them are representatives of Crimean Tatar 
population. Many of them are just Ukrainians who do not accept 
the annexation of Crimea and violation of their rights there. 
We are doing this starting from 2014. And we have once again a 
lot of cases. And it is quite important maybe to note that the 
quantity of these cases start to raise during last year.
    So it means that Russian authorities occupation authorities 
of Crimea, they also feel probably that the resistence inside 
the population of Crimea start to raise up. Maybe because our 
people who are awaiting return and reunification of Crimea with 
Ukraine and liberation actually of Crimea from Russian 
occupation forces. Maybe they start to feel that this 
liberation is closed.
    Mr. McCormick. OK, thank you. A following question, it is 
obvious that Iran is involved in this now and that they are 
supplying drones to Russia with significant harm to the 
civilian population as well. As a matter of fact, I know they 
targeted power. I know they targeted thing that support the 
civilians and actually directly injured civilians. What is the 
real impact do you think of players outside of Russia who are 
supporting Russia in their impact on things that are terrifying 
to the civilian populous of Ukraine?
    Mr. Kostin. I would say it is direct language because my 
belief is that without this number of drones which Russia 
received from Iran, they couldn't execute so massive attacks on 
critical civil infrastructure from autumn through all winter 
trying to terrorize Ukrainian population throughout the 
country, very far from the active battlefield to terrorize it, 
to starve, and to freeze. So unfortunately, the impact is 
direct. And Iranian drones really caused a lot of damage to 
Ukraine. Now with more air defense system, we see that our air 
defense is more efficient.
    The last case which was, like, yesterday, Odessa, my native 
city. So our reports was that from 12 drones, 10 were shot. 
Yes, so this is good statistics. But on the other side, two 
were hit.
    So I think that it is important on international level to 
stop this potential supply. And there is also another angle of 
these drones history. They are so simple in production. They 
are so cheap that they should be in center of attention of all 
of the countries in order not to be used, for instance, for 
terrorist attacks.
    Mr. McCormick. Thank you. I am out of time. But be strong.
    [Speaking foreign language], Ukraine.
    Mr. Kostin. [Speaking foreign language.]
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. Chair recognizes Mr. 
Crow.
    Mr. Crow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Prosecutor General, 
thank you for your testimony today. You have outlined a series 
of just shocking crimes against humanity, against the Ukrainian 
people, the kidnaping of tens of thousands of Ukrainian 
children and their indoctrination in prison camps, the rape and 
torture of women, the targeting of electrical water 
infrastructure to starve and to freeze, the Ukrainian people, 
the use of torture of prisoners, mass executions of civilians 
and on and on.
    These are war crimes. They are genocide. I join my 
colleagues in calling it what it is. And as several of 
colleagues have said, this is not just a battle for democracy 
and Ukrainian freedom, but this is a battle for humanity.
    The question that must be answered here is what we will 
allow humans to do to each other. And what will we allow the 
tyrant that is Vladimir Putin to get away with. The answer must 
be we won't allow him to get away with any of it.
    That must be the answer. There is no other alternative 
here. And I join you and the Ukrainian people and my colleagues 
in figuring out how we do that.
    Vladimir Putin has made a big mistake, though. He has 
underestimated the will of the Ukrainian people because he will 
not ever break that will. We know that. I have seen that 
firsthand from my friends in Ukraine.
    So the question becomes how do we make everybody, not just 
Vladimir Putin, accountable for these crimes? Battlefield 
commanders, individual soldiers, there must be accountability 
at every level. And to that end, the is Congress changed the 
law last year to allow the sharing of information to the 
International Criminal Court with respect to Russia and 
Ukraine.
    It is my understanding that that law has not been fully 
used yet by this Administration, that there is information that 
has not been put forward. Public reports have indicated that 
there is information that we have that we could provide that we 
have not due to some objections by the Department of Defense. 
What is your understanding as to the State of the sharing of 
that information, and what objections are you hearing from the 
U.S. Government at this point that might be slowing down the 
provision of really critical information?
    Mr. Kostin. In course of this war, many procedures 
historically took months and years before now in different 
countries and in different international organization now are 
sorted out within months or weeks. And this is quite a unique 
situation where we feel as a special element of support that 
you change your procedures. But in order to get this changed 
and in order to be more 100 percent efficient, it is important 
to in parallel to communicate the need of such changes.
    I do not want somehow to comment on why internally there 
could be some resistance in exchanging of information, I mean 
internally here in the United States. I just am ready to 
communicate and to explain that if this is for the matter of 
justice on international level to all perpetrators, not only 
those who executed these commands but those who ordered these 
commands. Then it does not erase any risk or any concern from 
the point of, like, from the military side.
    Of course, I can hear arguments because I used to be in 
communication all this year for different processes. But I 
think that proper communication, open and honest, will help to 
break the ice if it is necessary and if it is important. And 
once again, I think it is possible to share more intelligence 
information we need because not just sharing information.
    It is just to give answer on our very specific requests. We 
are trying to deal with this new legislation. Let's see what 
would be the outcome and the result. I am optimistic and I hope 
that our communication will lead to fruitful results.
    Mr. Crow. Thank you, Prosecutor General. We appreciate your 
Service and your leadership and testimony today. I yield back.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields back. Chair 
recognizes Mr. Kean.
    Mr. Kean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to 
thank you, Mr. Prosecutor General, for being with us today and 
for all the hard work that you and your office has been doing 
since the onset of this conflict last year. As chairman of the 
Europe Subcommittee, I share Chairman McCaul's feelings.
    It is important for this committee to inform the American 
public about what is currently happening in Ukraine and to 
display that many war crimes are being committed by Russian 
forces in Ukraine. It is important for the American people to 
know what is being committed by Putin forces in Ukraine and 
that Europe bear witness to the atrocities that have not been 
since the Second World War.
    It is now more important than ever to see the evidence of 
the attempted genocide of the Ukraine people. To followup on an 
earlier question on a special international tribunal, obviously 
regarding aggression, that would obviously have to go before 
the U.N. General Assembly. And has your government reached out 
to any of the people within the U.N. and other countries to 
build support for such a tribunal?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you for your support, and 
thank you for your question. First of all, the core group of 
countries who support the creation of special tribunal is 
expanding. And the newcomer is Costa Rica which is important. 
So it is a country from the Latin America.
    And we are in constant communication with the members of 
the United Nations in order to get more support for 
establishment of special tribunal. For this, I would ask that 
not only supporting us by words but also maybe to share the 
work of the countries of concern who are still are not ready to 
fix their position on the side of international tribunal so 
that our friends and allies who are ready to help in 
establishing of special tribunal will also deal with some 
countries where you historically have more communication 
opportunities or capabilities. This will be very helpful.
    Mr. Kean. Thank you for that. In 2014, Russian forces 
invaded Ukraine's sovereign territory for the first time in 
Donbas and Crimea. And they have illegally occupied those areas 
every since. During the initial invasion and 9 years since 
then, have the Russian forces and their proxies committed 
systemic war crimes in those regions?
    Mr. Kostin. Yes, we have. Actually, our War Crimes 
Investigation--I am sorry, War Crimes Prosecution Department of 
the Office of Prosecutor General was created before. So now we 
just extend its capabilities because of the number of war 
crimes committed. But the war crimes which we see now, many of 
them were committed before on the territory of occupied Donbas 
and in Crimea.
    Mr. Kean. That was my sense. Thank you for your leadership. 
I yield back my time.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields back. Chair 
recognizes Mr. Davidson.
    Mr. Davidson. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate your 
testimony, and I think it helps the American people understand 
the kind of visceral reaction to this war. The fundamental, I 
guess, principle for human nature is do not hurt people and do 
not take their stuff.
    And if people could just live by that, we would barely even 
need a government. But since we cannot, of course, we have all 
got them. And as America watched and saw that Russia invaded 
Ukraine, we know who is hurting people, and you cannot get more 
egregious than taking the whole country.
    They are taking your stuff and frankly they are taking a 
lot of dignity from people. So thanks for making that real. And 
of course, we have created this structure called the 
International Criminal Court to kind of get at the idea that 
certain things ought to be off limits. Do you believe that 
every country ought to be subject to the International Criminal 
Court?
    Mr. Kostin. Once again, I am sorry. Do you believe?
    Mr. Davidson. Do you believe every country ought to be 
subject to the rules and principles behind the International 
Criminal Court?
    Mr. Kostin. I think that it is a sovereign right of any 
country to take such decision. We understand that the idea of 
the International Criminal Court is based on the procedures 
which were first used at Nuremberg trials. So the ICC is 
something like a result of Nuremberg trials. The idea of the 
ICC, so the need of the International Criminal Court is to step 
in where national government, national authorities are 
unwilling or unable to prosecute crimes, especially war crimes.
    Mr. Davidson. Right. And so if you look--and obviously 
Russia is not willing to prosecute war crimes. Are any of your 
neighbors providing sanctuary to people that you consider war 
criminals?
    Mr. Kostin. We have such information. I do not think that 
it happens on a massive scale. The problem we have that we come 
to use, for instance, Interpol for the matter of arresting of 
the alleged war criminals who committed war crimes because for 
their practice says that this is treated like a political 
crimes which is not the case in our situation. But I do not 
think that there is a massive situation with the countries who 
are giving sanctuary to alleged war criminals.
    Mr. Davidson. OK. So that is encouraging because there are 
some neighboring countries that are at least providing material 
aid to Russia rather than to Ukraine.
    Mr. Kostin. What countries you mean which provide material 
aid to Russia than to Ukraine?
    Mr. Davidson. Am I wrong about Belarus?
    Mr. Kostin. So Belarus is used by Russia as, like, a matter 
of place from which they attack Ukraine or use it for their 
aviation and many other elements of the war. Iran is supplying 
weapons to Russia. I do not think that----
    Mr. Davidson. But you do not think it is a local issue. You 
think everybody is----
    Mr. Kostin. It is not a local issue. Of course, this war is 
a global war. And some countries are on the Russian side. Some 
countries are actually trying to hide that they are potentially 
supporting Russia. And if that been known, some of them are 
changing their attitude. This is important.
    Mr. Davidson. Yes, OK. So that is basically what I was 
trying to get at. And so when you look at the support that you 
have built for Ukraine, thanks for fighting courageously 
against an invasion. The American people were ready to go. I 
mean, really from America's perspective, kind of, like, ready, 
fire, aim, because normally when we get involved, we set a 
mission first.
    When you look at the principle behind these war crimes, how 
do we get to the point where we actually enforce them in a way 
where people really can--what it took to get the Nuremberg 
trials was unconditional surrender for Germany. So do you think 
that is the end State, unconditional surrender for Russia? 
Isn't that what it is going to take to hold all of the people 
accountable for these war crimes?
    Mr. Kostin. I used to answer this question many times. My 
answer is the following. As lawyers, it is our obligation to 
prepare everything, to create the case, to establish the court 
when it is necessary, to collect the evidence, to make 
everything possible in case any war criminal could be captured 
for him to be held in custody, prosecuted, tried, and 
convicted.
    And it is not our aim or we have no time to think about 
whether something happened in the future or not. We do not know 
what will be tomorrow. As I mentioned before today, even great 
tyrannies which were great in their capabilities can fall into 
1 day. The experts who help us now where prosecutors in first 
tribunals in cases of war crimes committed on territory of 
former Yugoslavia, many of them told me we never imagine when 
we started that war that, for instance, Milosevic and Karadzic 
would be in the dock.
    Mr. Davidson. But they did document it. And I wish I had 
more time. We have a little more generous buffer in this 
committee than some. So thank you, Chairman, for your 
indulgence to get to the answer. I actually have some other 
questions in writing for how the United States has been able to 
cooperate and be supportive.
    You have unearthed a number of those in dialog. And 
frankly, one of the questions that we get relates to would you 
be OK with the same standard being applied to Ukraine's conduct 
in the war. And I would just give you if I had the time to 
address the pretext that Russia used to start the war. And I 
look forward to a written response. Thank you.
    Chairman McCaul. Chair will allow the witness to answer 
that question.
    Mr. Kostin. Sorry?
    Chairman McCaul. You want to reState the question?
    Mr. Davidson. Well, the pretext that Russia used to start 
the war was, of course, that fellow Ukrainians were engaged in 
effectively war crimes against their countrymen who were 
Russian speakers, Azov Battalion and others, neo-Nazis inside 
Ukraine. And so Russia says, we are coming to protect Russian 
speakers because Ukraine won't protect them. And they used that 
as a pretext to come into the country. And so if that was going 
on in any way, shape, or form, would those people held to the 
same standard if they really were committing what is 
effectively atrocities against their fellow Ukrainians?
    Mr. Kostin. First of all, the pretext of Russian invasion, 
many elements, maybe all of the elements of this pretext is 
absolutely insane stories. And they could use any pretext. They 
decided to start this war of aggression. They do not need this 
pretext. Actually, what they did, they documented themselves 
and the crime of aggression which should be prosecuted by the 
international tribunal could not be very difficult case from 
the legal point of view because we have a lot of evidence of 
the crime of aggression started.
    And their pretext, I think everyone understand that there 
is nothing behind it, just some story for their propaganda and 
their TV. With regard to all war crimes committed in the course 
of this war, we start investigation in any case. And for us 
whatever we have information about war crimes committed, it 
does not matter who is alleged person.
    Mr. Davidson. Thank you for that. Look, nothing justifies 
what Vladimir Putin did. And look, even in America, we had 
people who crossed the lines in our own rules of engagement. In 
our own country, we held them accountable.
    Russia is not doing that. I think a lot of people see and 
say that Ukraine is also not doing that. And I just look at is 
there a basis at some point to build something diplomatically 
here, and I look forward to the written responses. Thank you, 
Chairman.
    Chairman McCaul. Yes, the gentleman's time is expired. Mr. 
Schneider is recognized.
    Mr. Schneider. Thank you. I am way over here. That is OK. 
It is a big room. I know it has been a long day. Thank you so 
much for sharing everything from your experience to testimony 
earlier of the witnesses.
    I am reminded of Elie Wiesel and two quotes to mind. He 
said famously, whoever hears a witness becomes a witness. And 
today we become witnesses to the horrific atrocities and war 
crimes taking place in Ukraine.
    He also says if we forget, we kill the victims a second 
time. And we cannot forget. We must do everything we can to 
make sure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held 
accountable and face the consequences of their actions.
    Also at the same time, we must constantly remind the world 
where we stand on the right side of history, on the moral side 
of history with the people of Ukraine, with the country of 
Ukraine. And I pray this war comes to an end as quickly as 
possible. But I also am committed to make sure that we continue 
to prosecute the crimes for as long as necessary.
    And I join my esteemed colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle who have expressed the solemn hope that President Putin, 
his lieutenants, and all the people guilty of these crimes face 
justice. Also, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, I appreciate the 
role that this committee has played and will continue to play 
in shedding light on these atrocities and the work you do and 
the witnesses coming here. This will not be, I suspect, the 
last time we talk about this.
    I am also pleased the last month the International Criminal 
Court did announce charges against Putin and issued an arrest 
warrant for him. For this to be effective, I think the 
testimony, the satellite images, the myriad of materials 
collected have to be retained, have to be stored, and be 
available to establish guilt. No doubt in my mind that Putin is 
guilty, that we will be able to prove his guilt.
    But with so many crimes, I know it is crucial that your 
office and the international community keep track. It is easy 
to say to use terms such as countless, inconceivable. We have 
to count, and we have to make sure that the world understands 
and comes to conception of what has happened.
    So to that end in the little of time left, Mr. Prosecutor 
General, what are you doing? How can we, the United States, 
best help to make sure that the evidence is collected 
appropriately, the chains of custody are preserved effectively, 
records are maintained so that when the time comes, when Putin 
and his cronies face trial, they won't be able to say this 
isn't true, this did not happen? The evidence will be 
presented, it will be overwhelming, and it will be 
substantiated.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you. Thank you for your support, and 
thank you for your question. First of all, we are working in a 
very structural way.
    Actually, head of my War Crimes Prosecution Department, 
Yuriy Bilousov, he just yesterday reported to me that they have 
finalized strategy of investigation and prosecution of war 
crimes which is created at war time by our investigators, 
prosecutors but with all international projects involved, 
especially Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group which is created with 
the help of U.S. Government, together with U.K. and EU 
colleagues and together with non-governmental organizations 
involved. And this is a strategic document. So we are no only 
dealing with specific cases, we help ourselves with the help of 
our partners to structure work of our department, of our 
prosecutors and investigators.
    We also have constant, permanent sets of training, not only 
held in Ukraine but also abroad with the help of our partners 
to raise the level of our prosecutors and investigators because 
they need to meet the highest criteria which I think could be 
met either in courts of United States, United Kingdom, European 
countries, or the ICC because we all understand my word to my 
prosecutors, every case, every evidence you collect, you need 
to think about that this evidence could be used at the 
International Criminal Court which has very high standards. And 
you need to be very careful in documenting this evidence 
because we do not have a right to lose any case. So I am 
absolutely with you.
    And your question is extremely important to highlight the 
necessity of the high quality of evidence collected. This is my 
primary task. We are backed and supported by all international 
projects of support and national prosecution authorities who 
are helpful to us to train our prosecutors and investigators to 
meet this criteria.
    But I also wanted to say one word. You mentioned the 
statistics. You mentioned the figures. This hearing today, it 
is not about the figures. It is about real lives.
    We all need to come back to real destinies, to real people 
who are the victims and survivors of this war. And behind every 
figure are people's lives. We need not to forget about it.
    Mr. Schneider. Thank you. That is so important. This is a 
crime against humanity, and the world will hold Russia and 
Putin to account. But as you touch on, every single individual, 
their story, their family, their community is a victim.
    And we must remember each of the victims as those 
individuals. Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you so much for 
having this hearing. I know we will have more on this. We have 
much work ahead of us. And I speak for our Nation, we stand 
with you in your very difficult task. But we are with you 
shoulder by shoulder.
    Chairman McCaul. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. 
Chair recognizes Mr. Hill.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 
chairman and the ranking member for their significant 
commitment to the people of Ukraine and their significant 
bipartisan effort to make the United States a firm and 
committed partner to ejecting Putin from Ukraine. So I thank 
you for your leadership.
    And also on the subject of the victims of this illegal 
invasion of a neighbor and sovereign country and member of the 
United Nations, I think we are not forgetting the victims here. 
Our chairman went to Bucha. He has done more than see photos.
    And we are grateful for the international news media that 
have brought the atrocities to light since day one on February 
24. So I thank the leadership of this committee. I want to 
followup on Mr. Schneider's comments.
    In 2016, the United Nations in a General Assembly vote 
established the mechanism, technically the International 
Impartial Independent Mechanism to Investigate War Crimes in 
Syria. It has been, I think, quite successful in storing 
evidence, documenting that evidence, some most sensational. 
Things like the Caesar photos, for example, and convictions 
have now been taken place in Europe, including recently in 
Germany.
    And the U.N. has formed a mechanism to back up evidence 
storage for Ukraine. Is that correct? Has the U.N. General 
Assembly set up a similar mechanism for documentation of war 
crimes in Ukraine?
    Mr. Kostin. It is very important to also to mention. And it 
is a matter of tribute and respect to all of prosecutors and 
investigators. Is that Ukraine which is very different from 
Syria? Ukraine from the very first day a full scale invasion.
    In short, under the leadership of President Zelenskyy, that 
all State authorities who are fully operational from the very 
first day of war. Even some of them were relocated from Kyiv, 
but they were fully operational. That is why we started 
investigation and prosecution of war crimes from the very first 
day. And in order to ensure secure storage of the evidence, I 
applied last year to our partners and we received first 
assistance from European Commission who secured for us--who 
supplied for us huge servers in order not only to save but also 
duplicate, yes?
    Mr. Hill. Duplicate.
    Mr. Kostin. Yes, duplicate the evidence of war crimes 
committed. We have also other instrument now in place which is 
under the auspices of Eurojust in The Hague. This is a very 
interesting element.
    It is called CICED, Core International Crimes Exchange Data 
base. This is also financed by the European Commission. And it 
will be a storage of the evidence which could be provided by 
the 20-plus countries who investigate war crimes and the joint 
investigation team which was created by Ukraine, Poland, and 
Lithuania and now Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, and Romania being 
part of where United States Department of Justice now have a 
memorandum of understanding and will deploy specialists who 
will help another element of this joint investigation team, the 
International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of 
Aggression which will start this operation in July in The Hague 
under the auspices of Eurojust with the support of a prosecutor 
which will be deployed by the Department of Justice of United 
States.
    So we have another storage facility for the evidence, as I 
mentioned, CICED. And it will be additional storage facilities 
for the ICPCA, International Center for the Prosecution of the 
Crime of Aggression. So we want some of the evidence to be kept 
not only in Ukraine but also abroad to be in a more safe 
location.
    Mr. Hill. That is very encouraging. And I am, of course, 
pleased that this Congress has supported that Department of 
Justice effort to provide that technical assistance. Do we have 
actual--in addition to DOJ training and the MOU, do we actually 
have FBI forensic experts assisting their colleagues in Ukraine 
on crime scene reviews?
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you for this question. During my visit--
this visit, we have already a meeting with Attorney General 
with regard to more active involvement of the FBI to 
investigate and prosecute war crimes. And I have meeting 
tomorrow on this specific matter with the FBI.
    Mr. Hill. Good. Well, this is very encouraging. We want to 
make sure that you have the support you need to take to the 
international community the proof of the atrocities of the 
Putin invasion of Ukraine and bring Putin and his henchmen to 
justice. And then we will do our part too on making sure that 
we work with our partners on finding ways for Russia to support 
the reconstruction of Ukraine once Ukraine has declared 
victory. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Kostin. Thank you.
    Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. Let me just thank 
the Prosecutor General for being here today. Very powerful 
testimony. You handled yourself extremely well making the case.
    The reason the ranking member and I wanted to do this 
hearing is to call attention to not only the American people 
but the world about what is happening on the ground and the 
atrocities taking place every day. At a minimum, you are 
providing a documentation, a historical documentation of these 
atrocities. And we sincerely hope that they will be brought to 
justice. And as I used to say when I was a prosecutor that 
there will be a special--particularly for the Wagner Group, a 
very special place in hell for them.
    So with that, members of the committee, pursuant to the 
rules, they have 5 days to submit statements, questions, 
exchange materials for the record. And I would like to close 
with an excerpt from an incredibly powerful documentary. I have 
seen it several times called Freedom on Fire which depicts the 
horrific realities of Putin's war.
    [Video shown.]
    Chairman McCaul. And without objection, the committee 
stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 2:11 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

         STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD FROM REPRESENTATIVE CONNOLLY
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                                 [all]