Zelenskyy addresses Helsinki Commission on Russian war crimes during hearing
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Photo: Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
There is no crime against humanity and life that Russia has not committed yet. The world has already seen dozens of cities and villages burned by Russians, states President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his address.
"The world has seen Ukrainian cities and villages burned to the ground by the Russian army. Everyone has at least heard about the mass killings that inevitably follow the Russian flag across occupied territories," Zelenskyy says in his address to participants of the U.S. Helsinki Commission's hearing on Holding Russia Accountable for War Crimes against Ukraine: Lessons from Nuremberg.
The president adds that it is impossible to reconcile with the pain of families that have been separated by Putin's war and the deportation of Ukrainian children. The entire world needs to remember the millions of Ukrainians surviving under Russian occupation, deprived even of basic human rights.
"Let there be no obstacles on the path to justice! Just as Nazism was condemned, Putin’s state must face the same fate," the president says.
Tribunal for Russian aggression against Ukraine
About forty countries have formed a group working on creating a special tribunal to hold Russia accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine.
As previously announced in the Ukrainian Parliament, the special tribunal could start operating as early as 2024.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General of Latvia, Juris Stukans, stated that a special tribunal for Russia could be created tomorrow, but it requires the desire to do so.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Russia has been deporting Ukrainian children on a regular basis to annexed Crimea, Belarus, or remote areas of Russia.
The deportations prompted the International Criminal Court in The Hague to issue arrest warrants for dictator Vladimir Putin and Russia's children's rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
