The Department of Justice (DOJ) in December announced historic war crimes
charges against four Russia-affiliated military personnel involved in the war
against Ukraine, the first ever charges under the U.S. war crimes statute for
heinous crimes against a U.S. citizen. The announcement came on December 6,
2023, as charges in the indictments were unsealed in the Eastern District of
Virginia (EDVA). The charges include three war crimes – torture, inhuman
treatment, and unlawful confinement – and one count of conspiracy to commit
war crimes, of a U.S. national in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of that country
in February 2022. If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum penalty of
life in prison.

The charges were brought in conjunction with investigations by federal law
enforcement agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Federal
Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro
Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray, both NAFUSA members, praised the
work of federal and international law enforcement in bringing justice to American
victims of war-crime atrocities. The charges were brought in partnership between
DOJ and DHS investigators and the EDVA U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DOJ’s War
Crimes Accountability Team (WarCAT), which is based in the Human Rights and
Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of DOJ’s Criminal Division.

Attorney General Garland announced the launch of WarCAT, in June 2022 during a
meeting with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova. At that time, AG
Garland described the team as playing an “integral role in the Department’s
ongoing investigation of potential war crimes over which the U.S. possesses
jurisdiction, such as the killing and wounding of U.S. journalists covering…[the war
in Ukraine.]” He tapped Eli Rosenbaum, a 36-year veteran of the DOJ, who agreed
to postpone his retirement to stand up and lead the team. Rosenbaum had
previously served as Director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which
was primarily responsible for identifying, denaturalizing, and deporting Nazi war
criminals.

On December 19, 2023, AG Garland announced a transition in the leadership of
WarCAT upon the retirement of Rosenbaum, to Christian Levesque, who had previously served as lead prosecutor of the team. Levesque joined the Human
Rights and Special Prosecution Section in 2016 after a career as an international
human rights attorney in the private sector.