A barbaric warlord’s prison death is a warning to Putin and his cronies

Strategic and geopolitical Adviser to governments and multinational companies and former BBC News Foreign Correspondent For a mass murderer, he cut an unimpressive figure. Short and stocky, with a paunchy face and deep-set eyes, his uniform helped to give him a presence that he would otherwise have lacked. When I met him, on a grey day in a crumbling building during Bosnia’s terrible war in the early to mid-90s, he saw himself as a man of destiny, shaping history. Ratko Mladić’s own story, though, would eventually end with him as a prisoner of the international community that he detested. Yet, now he is dead, this man from a past European conflict might, ironically, give hope to the victims of the latest war to consume part of the Continent. Bosnia was the war that dominated news coverage in the early 90s, just as Ukraine does today. To be in Bosnia back then often felt like being in a land without hope. Mladić more than played his part in the horrors which unfolded, earning his nickname of the “Butcher of Bosnia”. The career soldier who led the Bosnian Serb army believed he was building a Greater Serbia, wanting to ethnically cleanse, in the terminology of the time, Muslims and Croats as Yugoslavia collapsed. His bloody acts reached their peak in the town of Srebrenica. In July 1995, his troops summarily executed 8,372 Bosnian Muslim men and boys. It was the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War. The survivors of Srebrenica and many western governments wanted him brought before the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, set up to prosecute war crimes committed in Bosnia and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. The demand for justice is echoed today by Ukrainians as they one day hope to bring Russian commanders to justice for the atrocities unleashed on their own country. Bosnia’s killing grounds, as in Ukraine now, were places where civilians were murdered and cities lay shattered. The horrors that I witnessed in the former Yugoslavia stood in stark contrast to the immaculate order that I encountered when I stepped into the Hague war crimes court much later on to report on some of the trials. The military uniforms were replaced by the sharp clean suits of lawyers. Arbitrary violence was answered by rules and procedures. Mladić spent 16 years on the run before he was arrested in 2011 and brought before the court. That is where the lesson lies for today’s Ukraine: international justice does not always hurry, but it pays to be patient. The 31-year arc, from indictment for his crimes to his death in detention after being sentenced to life imprisonment, makes Mladić’s case very resonant for those Ukrainians who wonder whether Russians who carried out war crimes will ever be caught. The ICC is already investigating crimes in Ukraine and has issued six public arrest warrants, including against Vladimir Putin. On top of that, another track is being built. Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement in June 2025 for a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression. Netherlands has offered to host it. Its focus is on those responsible for planning, preparing, initiating or executing aggression. When the war was still on in Bosnia, I often heard people say no one would ever face justice. Ukrainians might sceptically repeat the same fear in 2026. It is true that an arrest warrant is not a pair of handcuffs. The new tribunal itself acknowledges two giant obstacles: immunity and custody. Sitting heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers could not be tried there while in office unless immunity were waived. Russian soldiers will not be surrendered by their state. Nor is a mountain of evidence the same thing as a conviction. Investigators must preserve and authenticate material, protect witnesses and build the chain from crimes on the ground to individual decision-makers. Experts are already compiling evidence for future prosecutions. International justice is painfully slow because it depends on law, evidence and, not to be forgotten, politics. Governments change, protectors lose power, borders open. Formerly untouchable men travel somewhere they should not. Warrants wait. Mladić died a convicted prisoner after a court had reduced military command and years on the run to a case number, a judgment and a life sentence. Ukrainians should not be promised a quick Hague reckoning. They can be promised something more serious: if the evidence is preserved and the institutions endure, Mladić is proof that time does not protect fugitives. If we’re patient, they can be hunted down.