On 6 April 2022, Ms. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Deputy Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and former Federal Ministries, and Gerhart R. Baum, former Federal Minister, have submitted a criminal complaint against Vladimir Putin with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe. The criminal complaint takes a significant investigative step further in comparison to other institutions and individuals gathering evidence of the crimes committed in Ukraine.

The international jurisdiction of the German criminal justice system is derived from Section 1, Sentence 1 of the Code of Crimes against International Law. The investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which have already been announced and have since commenced, do not hinder the application of the above, because the ICC's jurisdiction is complementary to that of any state "having jurisdiction."

Moreover, as far as it can be discerned, the criminal complaint names for the first time specific individuals responsible at all levels of the chain of command for war crimes and crimes against humanity that are described in detail. In addition to members of the Russian Security Council with its chair Vladimir Putin, many commanders of the Russian armed forces and members of various units of the Russian armed forces are named. Even if no trial against Putin could take place right now, the criminal charges are still a step towards implementation of international accountability for crimes against international law.