Sybiha expressed his gratitude to the Czech Republic. He wrote that he hopes that other responsible states will follow before the Council of Europe committee votes on the agreement in mid-May in Chisinau.
“Those who started the war against our country and continue to wage it must know that justice for the crime of aggression against Ukraine is inevitable,” said the Ukrainian minister on X.
“This is the preliminary position of the Czech Republic, which must still be approved by the government – in case it becomes necessary,” wrote Macinka. According to him, the Czech Republic met the request of the Council of Europe. “A minimum of 16 countries were needed for this process to formally begin. The required number of countries had not yet been filled at the time the Czech notification was made,” he added.
Pavel told journalists at the summit in Croatia on Wednesday that the Czech Republic had already expressed its support for the establishment of the tribunal at the Council of Europe in Reykjavík in May 2023. According to him, the tribunal is needed so that the crimes of Russian aggression do not go unpunished.
The Council of Europe announced last summer the intention to create a special tribunal that would try the Russian leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, modeled after the Nuremberg trial with the leadership of Nazi Germany. In January of this year, the EU provided the first ten million euros for the operation of this tribunal, which, according to the media, plans to hold at least two dozen people accountable.
The tribunal will supplement the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has the authority to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine. At present, however, the ICC cannot investigate the crime of aggression in the case of Ukraine due to the limitation of jurisdiction, the Council of Europe stated earlier in a statement. According to her, the special tribunal will fill this gap.
According to various estimates, the war in Ukraine, which was unleashed by Russia in February 2022, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. According to Kyiv and the West, Russian soldiers committed a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity in it. In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for bringing Ukrainian children from the occupied territories to Russia.
