17 Apr 2026
Starvation Mobile Justice Team
The Starvation Mobile Justice Team (SMJT) started its mission in January 2023, as part of the EU, UK and US-funded Atrocity Crimes Advisory (ACA) group. This team includes senior international and Ukrainian prosecutors and investigators with expertise in starvation-related crimes, collaborating with OSINT experts to leverage cutting-edge innovation in the investigation of these crimes. The SMJT was created as a response to the increasingly clear, urgent need to investigate starvation related crimes in Ukraine. Since its inception, the SMJT has delivered ground breaking investigative findings, public-facing reports and crucial technical assistance to the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG), Regional Prosecuting Offices (RPOs) and other key stakeholders. During 2024, the SMJT expanded its work under the three thematic pillars: (i) the siege of Mariupol (assessing this primarily through the lens of humanitarian access violations); (ii) grain theft and the potential qualification as and legality of a naval blockade of the Black Sea Ports in the context of starvation; and (iii) patterned analysis, focussing on attacks against critical infrastructure, notably attacks on grain and port-related infrastructure utilised for export within Odesa Oblast.
Our Services and Activities
- Investigating starvation-related crimes - GRC's SMJT work brought significant attention to Russian forces’ use of starvation tactics and weaponization of food and objects indispensable to survival against Ukrainian civilians. Investigations were conducted on the bread queue attack in Chernihiv, the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, the seizure and extraction of Ukrainian grain, the siege of Mariupol, the attack on the Dnipro-Mykolaiv water pipeline, and the attacks on grain and port-related infrastructure in the Odesa Oblast.
- Providing training and mentorship to Ukrainian authorities on starvation crimes and OSINT through sustained engagement and ongoing outreach with relevant Ukrainian investigative and prosecutorial authorities, aimed at enhancing their understanding of best practices to investigate and prosecute the use of starvation as a method of warfare and attacks against critical infrastructure.
- Continued collaboration with Ukrainian authorities, which resulted in direct requests to establish permanent working groups and task forces and specifically led to the creation of a unique task force with the Ukrainian Intergovernmental Working Group (IWG).
- Providing legal advice, and submitting legal documents and intelligence reports to international and domestic accountability fora, among which six intelligence reports produced and submitted to the ICC, a comprehensive legal submission to the OHCHR’s Independent International Commission of Enquiry on Ukraine, and the drafting of a comprehensive Article 54 Communications to the ICC.
- Developing and distributing legal resources, and ground-breaking advocacy reports, including tailoring the Starvation Training Manual to a Ukraine Special Issue with an enhanced OSINT section, and two advocacy reports respectively on the seizure and extraction of Ukrainian grain and the siege of Mariupol.
- Designing and disseminating best practices and standard operating procedures(SOPs) concerning the investigation and legal framing of attacks on critical infrastructure and other starvation-related conduct, and the collection, consolidation, analysis, and preservation of OSINT to an evidentiary standard, building upon the Division’s OSINT Methodology which was in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience, IMSL and peer-reviewed by an external OSINT expert Yvonne McDermott.
Deliverables
The Starvation Training Manual
Release of the Special Issue Ukraine edition of the Starvation Training Manual (available in Arabic and Ukrainian), and the Mobile App, the first of its kind on the market.
StoryMap
Release of a comprehensive StoryMap presenting the high-level findings of SMJT investigations into Russian forces’ use of starvation tactics, and the weaponisation of food and other OIS against Ukrainian civilians.
Harvesting Conflict
Harvesting Conflict. Unlawful Attacks against grain and related infrastructure in the Odesa Oblast
The Architecture of Starvation
The Architecture of Starvation. Seven Years on From UNSC 2417: Operationalising the Prohibition of Starvation under International Law and Policy
Partners
The project was established with the support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. To collect information and for cooperation purposes, GRC engaged with a broad range of Ukrainian governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as international human rights institutions. These include, but are not limited to: the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, and Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Offices, the Central Investigative Office of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Security Service of Sumy Region, the Interagency Working Group of Military Experts, the International Criminal Court, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, the European Union Advisory Mission Ukraine, the World Food Programme, Open Society Foundations Justice Initiative, eyeWitness to Atrocities, Mnemonic Ukrainian Archive, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Ukrainian Red Cross, the Mariupol City Administration, the National Police of Ukraine, the National Guard of Ukraine, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, the Centre for Civic Initiatives “Eastern Gate,” the charitable foundation “I am Mariupol,” and many others.
Latest Insights
Ukraine
16 Apr 2026