Ex-Wagner officer arrives in Netherlands to testify at the ICC about Russian war crimes

A Russian man who was formerly an officer in that country's military, as well as the private military organization known as The Wagner Group, arrived in the Netherlands on Monday. He reported to the Marechaussee, a branch of the Dutch military, after arriving at Schiphol Airport. He plans to testify about allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, according to EenVandaag.

He was identified as Igor Salikov. The 60-year-old man spoke with EenVandaag and provided the written statement that he plans to give to the ICC. He said he worked as a soldier for about 25 years, first in the Russian army and later for the Wagner group, notably in Syria and various African countries. He was also in Ukraine when the war broke out in the eastern region in 2014 and after the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022.

He told EenVandaag that he witnessed many crimes in Ukraine. “And I know where the orders came from,” he said. Salikov wrote in his letter to the ICC that orders came directly from the Russian Ministry of Defense, sometimes even from the office of President Vladimir Putin.

Salikov also said he saw many “false flag operations” in Donetsk following the start of the war in 2014, “civilians being threatened and murdered,” and claimed that landmines were laid in civilian areas, causing many adults and children to be killed. The goal was to destabilize the region, and to accuse the Ukrainian army of violence against the Russian community there.

Salikov added that he witnessed “atrocities against civilians” after Russia's intensified invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The former soldier said that prisoners of war were also abused and executed. He also witnessed child abductions. “I saw people from the secret services take large numbers of children without parents across the border into Belarus,” he said.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his children's rights commissioner, Maria Alexeyevna Lvova-Belova. Both were accused of violating the Rome Statute by playing a direct role in removing Ukrainian people from their home country, specifically children.

According to AD, Salikov managed to leave Russia last June and settled in Cyprus with his wife and three children. It remains unclear how the ICC will respond to his statement.