MADRID, 1 (EUROPA PRESS)
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, met this Tuesday with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, and in a statement after the meeting, he stated that he will dismantle “the genocidal system of Russia completely, from its gears to architects”.
The collaboration between Ukraine and the CFI, Zelensky has affirmed, is being effective and is focusing on the deportations to Russia of Ukrainian children and adults. He is also working on opening a CFI office in the Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader has stressed the importance of bringing to international justice, not only the Russian soldiers who have participated in the invasion, but also the high political and military commanders responsible for the invasion.
This coincides with the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andrei Smirnov, who met on Tuesday with the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) to strengthen collaboration against the Russian invasion.
“Neither the crime of genocide nor the crime against humanity would have occurred if the main crime, the crime of aggression, had not occurred,” Smirnov remarked. “Since the first days of the escalating conflict in February 2022, we have sought ways to bring justice to the people who sparked the biggest conflict since World War II,” he added.
“We have studied all the historical examples of how the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals functioned, as well as the capabilities of the International Criminal Court. And we have realized that the only way to quickly punish Russia’s top political and military officials is to establish a court”, concluded the Ukrainian president in a statement after the meeting.
As of today, Smirnov recalled, there are six resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that support the creation of a special international court, as well as five resolutions of the European Parliament and others of NATO and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
He has also taken the opportunity to ask again that the crime of aggression be criminalized for international courts: “For 70 years, no one in the world has been tried for the crime of aggression. Russia arrived in Ukraine through aggression in 2014, and in 2008 they attacked Georgia”.
The claim on the crime of aggression is something that Ukraine has been demanding since the beginning of the war.
Other Human Rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, have also recommended ratifying this crime as one of the necessary ways to give justice to the victims of the invasion of Ukraine.