Eurojust and the war in Ukraine
On this page, you will find the latest information on Eurojust’s role in the judicial proceedings with regard to the war in Ukraine. Please refer to the Q&As for answers to the most common questions. Below that, the section ‘latest developments’ will give you an overview of recent proceedings and events. The Twitter feed shows the latest tweets and retweets of Eurojust in relation to Ukraine. If you are a media representative and you have questions beyond those answered on this page, please contact the Eurojust media team.
Q&As
The 'Freeze and Seize' Task Force was set up by the European Commission to ensure the efficient implementation of the EU sanctions against listed Russian and Belarussian oligarchs across the EU.
The Task Force is composed of the Commission, national contact points from each Member State, Eurojust and Europol as well as other EU agencies and bodies as necessary. It will coordinate actions by EU Member States, Eurojust, Europol and other agencies to seize and, where national law provides for it, confiscate assets of Russian and Belarussian oligarchs.
CICED is the Core International Crimes Evidence Database , set up and managed by Eurojust. It is a unique, tailor-made judicial database in which evidence of core international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes) is stored, preserved and analysed. CICED enables the Agency to support national judicial authorities in investigating and prosecuting core international crimes and their context. Competent national authorities from EU Member States and countries with Liaison Prosecutors at Eurojust can submit evidence to CICED via secure file transfer. Possible types of evidence include, but are not limited to, videos, photographs, audio recordings, satellite images, witness statements, victim testimonies, and medical and forensic documents.
The fact that CICED stores evidence on core international crimes from national judicial proceedings in a single, secure, central database allows for the early identification of parallel investigations, which results in a more efficient use of resources. Providing an overview of interviewed victims helps avoid re-victimisation by repeated interviews. In addition, targeted evidence searches mean faster and more effective national investigations. Based on structured evidence, national and international authorities can successfully proceed with prosecutions.
Shortly after the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the institutions of the European Union extended Eurojust's mandate. On 1 June 2022, Regulation 2022/838 entered into force, allowing the Agency to preserve, analyse and store evidence of core international crimes, and thereby paving the way for CICED. The evidence database has been set up within Eurojust's secure IT environment and complies with the highest IT security and data protection standards.
Please contact your National Desk or Liaison Prosecutor by email, specifying that you wish to submit evidence to CICED. Eurojust will contact you with information on how evidence transfer works, or if you have already submitted evidence, with the technical information necessary for the transfer. Please note that this contact option is reserved exclusively for national judicial authorities.
Eurojust will receive evidence submitted by national authorities. Information collected by private parties such as non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations may eventually become evidence, but it needs to be assessed by national and international judicial authorities. Private parties are therefore asked to submit relevant information to their national authorities.
CICED is not limited to a particular conflict. It can serve as evidence storage for any armed conflict investigated by Eurojust's partners.
More information is available in this section of the Eurojust website.