“The War Will Write Everything Off”. Who Commits and Who Uncovers Russian War Crimes in Ukraine

Anastasia Lotareva

According to international law, an unprovoked war of aggression, which Vladimir Putin started on February 24th, 2022, constitutes a crime in itself. However, this immense crime is composed of hundreds and thousands of smaller crimes: moving into Ukrainian territory, capturing cities and villages, meeting fierce resistance, Russian soldiers and mercenaries killed and raped civilians, unlawfully imprisoned activists and dissenters, tortured and disappeared innocent people, while their commanders gave criminal orders and helped to cover the crimes. 

This is the first book to present a comprehensive narrative of how these crimes are committed, exposed and punished. It is based on exclusive in-depth interviews, as well as on extensive journalistic research, and intends to tell this story through different perspectives. It will show the victims of the crimes, tell their stories and make their voices heard. It will profile the perpetrators, uncovering their personal characteristics and motivations, how they lose their humanity and justify their actions. It will explain how the investigators, both state and independent actors, work to find the criminals and bring them to justice. And it will reveal what happens next, both in Ukraine, where some of the criminals are prosecuted, and in Russia, where they are greeted as heroes.  

The International Criminal Court is already investigating numerous war crimes’ allegations. There will be many more such cases. One book cannot tell all the stories, but it can show the systemic nature of Russian criminal violence, analyze its (im)moral underpinnings, and give us hope that the crimes won’t be left unpunished.

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GENRE

Non-fiction, investigation, war reporting

STATUS

Full text to be delivered in June 2025

SAMPLES

Sample translation to be available in January 2025

RIGHTS

Available in all languages and territories

AUTHOR

One of the most prominent and experienced independent Russian journalists, Anastasia Lotareva has been writing about human condition in Russia for more than 15 years. In the 2010s, she was a leading reporter and then the editor-in-chief of Takie Dela, a groundbreaking media startup dedicated to bringing public attention to underexposed social issues. Since 2021, Lotareva has been working as a reporter and editor for the BBC News. After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she published numerous stories about the crimes Russian soldiers and mercenaries committed during the war, talking both to victims and to perpetrators.

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RUS