The center that will be set up in The Hague to investigate possible Russian aggression crimes in Ukraine could start soon, the president of the European Commission announced on Thursday.
The idea is nothing new, but Ursula von der Leyen made it official in Kiev, Ukraine: “Russia must be held accountable in the courts for its heinous crimes. I am pleased to announce today the establishment of a Center for Investigating the Crime of Aggression to be established in The Hague, we will be able to launch it soon.”
Flanked by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, von der Leyen said at the start of two days of contacts between European Union officials and Kiev that “the prosecutors of Ukraine and the European Union are cooperating” and “gathering evidence” that the crimes committed by the Russian Federation since the beginning of the invasion, on February 24 last year.
The center, which will be coordinated by the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), will “force Putin to pay for his horrific war,” he said.
Moscow must also “pay for the devastation it has caused and will contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine,” said the Commission’s president.
That is why the European Union is working “with partners” to find a way to “use Russian public funds for the reconstruction” of Ukrainian territory after the war.
The EU wants to celebrate the anniversary of the invasion with the tenth sanctions package against Russia
The European Union expects to adopt the tenth package of sanctions against Russia by February 24, the date marking a year since the invasion of Ukraine began, the President of the European Commission announced today in Kiev.
During a joint press conference with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, on the occasion of today’s meeting between the College of the European Commission and the Ukrainian government in Kiev, Ursula von der Leyen assured that the EU will pay the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for their horrific war with the adoption of new sanctions later this month.
“Before Russia entered the war, we warned very clearly of the huge economic costs we would inflict in the event of an invasion, and today Russia is paying a heavy price as our sanctions choke its economy,” he said. the city Council.
“And we are going to step up the pressure even further. We are going to introduce, with our G7 partners, an additional price cap for Russian oil products, and on February 24, exactly one year after the start of the invasion, we expect to implement the tenth sanctions package ‘ he then announced.
Von der Leyen added that “Russia will also have to pay for the destruction it causes, and will have to contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine”.
To this end, we are exploring with our partners how to use Russia’s public funds [congelados pela UE no quadro das sanções] for the benefit of Ukraine,” he said.
On Monday, the EU decided to extend sanctions against specific sectors of the Russian economy, which had been in place since 2014, for another six months, until July 31, 2023, on the occasion of the annexation of Crimea.
In a statement, the EU Council announced that it had decided to extend for six months the sanctions, which came into force in 2014, in response to Russia’s actions to destabilize the situation in Ukraine, with the illegal annexation of Crimea peninsula, and aggravated, with successive packages of restrictive measures, following the military offensive launched in February 2022.
These sanctions currently include restrictions on the import and maritime transport of crude oil and certain Russian petroleum products to the EU, a ban on access to the SWIFT (short for “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”) financial transaction system for certain Russian banks and the suspension of broadcasting activities and media licenses used by the Kremlin (Russian Presidency) as tools to manipulate information and promote disinformation, the same information note said.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has so far led to the flight of more than 14 million people — 6.5 million internally displaced persons and nearly eight million to European countries — according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Currently, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russian security – was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and Russia political and economic sanctions.
The UN presented 7,068 dead civilians and 11,415 injured since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are far from real.
Source: DN
