Ukraine’s Attorney General Andriy Kostin said on Sunday that 47,000 potential war crimes have been committed in the country and called for a special international court to investigate and try Russia’s “crime of aggression”.
“There is no doubt that the scale of crimes committed by the Russian army” since February 24, when it began its military assault on Ukraine, “is simultaneously brutal and colossal,” Andriy Kostin said during a videoconference intervention from Kiev. the 68th International Conference, the annual session of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, which takes place in Madrid.
The prosecution said Ukrainian authorities, with the support of experts and international entities, have so far “recorded 47,000 incidents as war crimes”, including torture, murder, assault or forced displacement and transportation of populations “on a large scale”. . , destined for what could be considered “concentration camps”.
Andriy Kostin stressed that Russia has a strategy to attack civilians in Ukraine, with 8,000 non-military dead, including 400 children, so far.
The prosecutor recalled “the hail of missiles on Ukrainian cities” and critical infrastructure in recent weeks, which he considered “acts of terror and intimidation against the civilian population”, with the destruction of homes and other vital infrastructure for Ukrainians, such as power plants . .
Andriy Kostin said that several regions of Ukraine, such as the capital Kyiv, are already experiencing negative temperatures and “serious humanitarian situations for the winter” are being created, wondering how the population will be able to survive in these conditions , without energy or energy. heating, and considered that this dimension also pertains to Russia’s war crimes.
“Our needs, our claims and our pleas are quite simple. We must stop this war as soon as possible to liberate our territories and restore our sovereignty and our territorial integrity. And we must guarantee justice to victims and survivors of the atrocities committed. through the Russian Federation, we must put an end to Russia’s impunity,” said Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
Compensation to Ukrainians
Andriy Kostin called on the international community “to support the creation of a tribunal for the crime of aggression, to try the masterminds of the crime”, namely the Russian President and Supreme Leader of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, and “the whole elite Russian” involved.
The crime of aggression must also be tried, because it is “the starting point that precedes all other war crimes”, he defended.
The prosecutor also insisted on the need to guarantee “reparation” and compensation to Ukrainians for the destruction of the country and “civilian property”, through the confiscation of Russian property.
“Europe has not witnessed this devastation since World War II” and new “international mechanisms must be put in place to seize the perpetrators’ assets,” he defended, warning that it has been difficult under international law to implement decisions in this regard. as some dictated by bodies such as the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights.
At the end of Andriy Kostin’s intervention, a spokesman for the Political Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly said that a resolution “defending the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression committed by to examine and assess Russia”. in this war against Ukraine”.
This year’s session of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance between European and North American countries) will conclude on Monday with a plenary session in which the president of Ukraine will intervene via video conference.
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly consists of 269 delegates from the 30 countries of the Alliance and a further 100 members from partner countries.
Source: DN
