Ukraine: Accountability for Air Strikes

Grigorii Pyrlik

Ukrainian journalist

Friday, 26 September, 2025

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On September 4, 2024, a Russian missile hit a residential building at 44 Konovaltsia Street in Lviv, killing six people. 

Liubomyr Arabskyi saw his father die.

“He went down the stairs ahead of me. My brother followed him,” Arabskyi told IWPR. “I was standing by the stairwell, watching them. Then the strike hit… everything was collapsing. I think my father died instantly. I hope he didn’t suffer.”

In total, eight people were killed in the strike on Lviv on September 4, 2024. One man, Yaroslav Bazylevych, lost his wife and three daughters. 

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has launched over 3,000 missiles, more than 2,500 guided aerial bombs and nearly 18,000 Shahed-type attack drones against Ukraine. 

Investigators face the challenge of identifying which Russian commanders gave the order and which unit was responsible for the attack so as to bring the perpetrators to justice. This often involves a complex system of intelligence gathering and co-operation between security investigators, journalists and civil society, with most proceedings in absentia.

Immediately following the September 4, 2024 attack, the Security Service of Ukraine launched a criminal investigation. Experts identified X-101 air-to-surface missiles and Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles as the weaponry used in the attack, with construction, medical and vehicle forensic examinations underway.

The families of the deceased have been granted victim status but remain uninformed about the investigation’s progress.

“I was questioned by investigators and we gave statements. However, as I understand it, the case has been classified,” Arabskyi said.

In response to an inquiry from IWPR, the press service of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSB) confirmed that the case was with the agency’s main investigative directorate and that the investigation was ongoing.

Located in western Ukraine, Lviv is hundreds of kilometres from the front lines. Nonetheless, according to Oliviia Herliak, a spokesperson for the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office, 31 civilians have been killed and 118 injured by Russian air strikes across the region since February 24, 2022.

When a Russian strike hits a civilian target, investigators launch proceedings under Article 438 of the criminal code of Ukraine. This is a broad article used to investigate the mistreatment of prisoners of war, the use of methods of warfare prohibited by international law and other crimes.

A specialised unit of the Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office is currently supervising 39 criminal proceedings covering 262 incidents of missile and drone strikes. 

Legal scholar Gyunduz Mamedov is a former head of the Prosecutor’s Office of Crimea, where he began building a system for investigating war crimes. Later, as Deputy Prosecutor General, he was instrumental in creating the main coordinating body responsible for bringing perpetrators of war crimes to justice.

He told IWPR that there were several ways to identify the specific Russian military personnel involved in airstrikes.

“You can analyse the flight trajectory and the probable launch site,” explained Mamedov, now an expert with the Ukraine.5AM human rights coalition. “Using maps, satellite imagery and radio intelligence, you can identify the Russian Federation Armed Forces units that were stationed there. You can also study orders and reports that later become available through interceptions or when a Russian soldier is captured.”

Mariana Haievska-Kovbasiuk, a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that open-source intelligence (OSINT) had proved to be a valuable tool. Monitoring publicly available information made it possible to identify not only military commanders in a specific sector, but also their biographical details, positions and career progression.

Alongside official investigations, journalists and civic activists are also working to identify those responsible for war crimes. 

For example, on April 28, 2022, the Russian military launched a missile strike on Kyiv. One of the missiles hit a residential building on Hlybochytska Street, killing Vira Hyrych, a journalist and producer for Radio Liberty. Vira’s colleagues from the Schemes investigative project identified the airbase of the Russian Tu-95MS bomber used to launch the missile and also named the individuals involved in programming the weapon.

“The key strengths of journalists and public activists are their proactiveness and motivation,” Mamedov said. “It is therefore in the investigators’ best interest to cooperate with them.”

ONGOING CASES

A body of evidence has enabled Ukrainian law enforcement to charge several Russian servicemen. In early September 2025, Sergey Kobylash, commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ Long-Range Aviation, and Oleg Skitsky, commander of the 121st Heavy Bomber Regiment, were charged with orchestrating a missile strike on the Kyiv TV tower on March 1, 2025. The attack killed five people and injured six.

The SBU also holds Kobylash responsible for several other war crimes. These include the June 26, 2022 strike on an apartment building in Kyiv that killed one person and injured three; the April 28, 2023 missile attack on an apartment tower in Uman that left 23 dead and nine wounded and the July 8, 2024 missile strike on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, which killed two and injured 34. 

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Kobylash in March 2024. In July 2024, he was appointed Commander of the Air Force and Deputy Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

“Major General Kobylash is not the only Russian military commander facing a warrant from the ICC,” SBU spokesperson Artem Dekhtiarenko said. “Information gathered by the SBU was instrumental in the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for former Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov [for their involvement in 2023 strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure]”.

Despite the challenges in identifying those behind missile strikes, investigators have already sent several cases to court, resulting in convictions. For example, on August 1, 2025, the Kherson City Court sentenced Dmitry Zharkikh, commander of the 8th Artillery Regiment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Coastal Defence, to life in prison in absentia. A panel of judges found Zharkikh guilty of ordering the shelling of central Kherson in December 2022 with Grad multiple-launch rocket systems. The attack killed 13 civilians and wounded more than 60.

By examining impact craters and the dispersal of shell fragments, experts pinpointed the firing positions on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Kherson region. A deputy commander for one of Ukraine’s military operational groups reported that the 8th Artillery Regiment of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was equipped with Grad systems. Investigators identified the regiment’s commander using OSINT.

Furthermore, on August 11, 2025, the Velykooleksandrivskyi District Court in the Kherson region sentenced Stepan Suminin, a serviceman of the 10th Separate Special Purpose Brigade, to 12 years in prison in absentia. Suminin was found guilty of dropping an explosive from a drone onto a civilian man and woman in the village of Odradokamianka of the Kherson region in May 2023.

The court verdict revealed that Ukrainian law enforcement had gained access to the defendant’s Telegram account. In messages to his brother, Suminin described dropping an explosive on three people in Odradokamianka. When his brother asked, “So you dropped it on civilians, or who?” Suminin responded that it did not matter to him whether the wounded were military personnel because “any male person is a target”.

“Prosecuting such cases is complicated by the fact that the alleged perpetrators are often on the front lines, in the temporarily occupied territories, or in Russia,” noted Haiovska-Kovbasiuk. She stressed that this did not preclude investigations and trials being conducted in absentia “to ensure that justice is inevitable”.