Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the creation of a special tribunal to guarantee fair punishment for those responsible for starting Russian aggression against Ukraine back in 2014. Zelensky said this in a speech at a conference in The Hague.
He noted that the Ukrainian justice will do the part of the work that the national jurisdiction allows. The president also believes that the international criminal court will also ensure accountability for the crimes within its jurisdiction - war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide. However, according to Zelensky, the existing judicial institutions, for jurisdictional reasons, cannot prosecute all those responsible for the primary crime of Russian aggression - back in 2014.
"That is why we need a special tribunal for this crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine. A tribunal that will ensure fair and legal punishment for those who started this history of catastrophes and tragedies that has become the biggest war in Europe since World War II," he said.
The president believes that the efforts of Ukraine and international society will be enough to record the crimes of the Russian occupiers, collect all the evidence, and make it admissible in the courts in order to establish each of the perpetrators.
"However, those people whose decisions led to this array of crimes should not be hidden behind the so-called immunity of officials. The principle of inevitability of punishment must also work for these people, and only a special trubulan on aggression against Ukraine can provide this," Zelensky added.
