Ukraine wants Russian cyberattacks classified as war crimes. This is because Russia would coordinate cyberattacks with regular attacks that are often directed against civilians. “It would be the first time that a cyber attack has been qualified as a war crime,” says Brigadier General and professor of cyber warfare Paul Ducheine of the Defense Academy and the University of Amsterdam.
Responsibility
According to Ducheine, in fact, “military forces must answer in all dimensions of war: in the physical dimension for physical war crimes such as torture and shootings against civilian targets, in the cognitive dimension they must answer, for example, for terrorist attacks , attacks on power plants and terrorization of the Ukrainian and therefore also digital population’.
Expiration date?
When asked whether it is legally tenable, Ducheine calls the step a “logical continuation of the law of war.” The law of war once started with land warfare rules, then air was added, and now a digital component.”
According to the professor, whether a cyber attack is a war crime depends on two things. “One is that warring parties are attacking digital civilian targets, service providers, for example, in part, software and services. Secondly, an attack on a military target causes so much collateral damage that it is disproportionate, and this too is a violation of the laws of war.’
Ukrainian officials have started gathering facts and compiling a file that will be sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, according to Ducheine, the trial could still take some time. ‘It takes a long time for prosecution to be instituted if you look at the wars in Bosnia. I suspect that the conflict must first be frozen or concluded for a long time and that there must be enough factual material to find an author. It’s still difficult.’
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Source: BNR
Sharon Rock is an author and journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. She has a passion for learning about different cultures and understanding the complexities of the world. With a talent for explaining complex global issues in an accessible and engaging way, Sharon has become a respected voice in the field of world news journalism.
