Idea of ​​bringing Putin to justice in The Hague should become absolutely normal - MP Kravchuk

She shared this in an exclusive interview with Espreso TV. 

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a decision regarding a special tribunal for Russia and Belarus for crimes committed in Ukraine. 

“PACE has already proposed to conduct the ad hoc international tribunal, but this time it's the whole resolution that is dedicated to the legal consequences of the Russian Federation's aggression in Ukraine. Of course, now it contains more information. And this time, it also specifies that the Assembly recommends to conduct this tribunal in The Hague. The Netherlands has already said that they could host such a tribunal, noting that they have the infrastructure and a lot of qualified workers, because the International Criminal Court (ICC) is also based in The Hague,” the Ukrainian lawmaker said. 

Yevheniia Kravchuk also explained that the ICC cannot deal with the crime of aggression, as it is not within its jurisdiction.

“The ICC, I would say, deals with concrete people and we know their names. But the military political leadership of Russia and Belarus cannot be convicted or put on trial in the ICC. That's why we need to establish this ad hoc tribunal just for one crime - crime of aggression, but it's called the mother crime of all crimes. After the crime of aggression, all other war crimes such as rape, murder, attacks on the infrastructure and ecocide became possible after Putin decided to invade Ukraine. So the next step that we would really like to see is to move from words to action, and we really need to have many countries on board for establishing this tribunal,” she noted. 

The member of the Ukrainian parliament concluded that the idea of ​​bringing Putin to justice in The Hague should become absolutely normal.

“We shouldn't talk about the face of the aggressor, as we did in 2014. A lot of countries urged us not to defend Crimea and not to 'escalate'. And now, in 2023, we have this full-scale war in the heart of Europe. And that's just because of the impunity of the feeling that the aggressor can do everything and no one can stop him. Therefore, we need to make this idea absolutely normal, that these crimes and gross violations of international law have to be punished,” Yevheniia Kravchuk emphasized.