LVIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US Attorney General Merrick Garland and senior European legal officials on Friday and called on Russia to face international war crimes prosecutions.
Zelenskyy announced the meetings in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, hundreds of miles from the front lines of the war, during his evening video address to the nation.
“We are doing everything so that the International Criminal Court succeeds in punishing Russian war criminals,” Zelenskyy said.
“The main problem with all these meetings and the Lviv conference is accountability,” he added. “The responsibility of Russia and its leaders is personal, for the aggression and terror against our state and our people.”
Zelenskyy said more than 70,000 Russian war crimes have been recorded so far.
“But, unfortunately, we don’t know all the crimes at the moment,” he added. “Much of our territory still remains occupied and we cannot currently reliably predict how much Russian crime we will uncover after the occupiers are expelled.”
Besides Garland, other participants in the conference included British Attorney General Victoria Prentis, Spanish Attorney General Alvaro Garcia Ortiz and EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said UN humanitarian staff were reporting “intense hostilities” near the besieged Ukrainian town of Bakhmut and said the few humanitarian partners in the UN on the ground focused on evacuating the most vulnerable people from the conflict zone.
Bakhmut has been at the center of intense fighting for months, with Russian troops, including large forces from the private Wagner Group, closing in on the largely destroyed town.
Zelenskyy announced the meetings in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, hundreds of miles from the front lines of the war, during his evening video address to the nation.
“We are doing everything so that the International Criminal Court succeeds in punishing Russian war criminals,” Zelenskyy said.
“The main problem with all these meetings and the Lviv conference is accountability,” he added. “The responsibility of Russia and its leaders is personal, for the aggression and terror against our state and our people.”
Zelenskyy said more than 70,000 Russian war crimes have been recorded so far.
“But, unfortunately, we don’t know all the crimes at the moment,” he added. “Much of our territory still remains occupied and we cannot currently reliably predict how much Russian crime we will uncover after the occupiers are expelled.”
Besides Garland, other participants in the conference included British Attorney General Victoria Prentis, Spanish Attorney General Alvaro Garcia Ortiz and EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said UN humanitarian staff were reporting “intense hostilities” near the besieged Ukrainian town of Bakhmut and said the few humanitarian partners in the UN on the ground focused on evacuating the most vulnerable people from the conflict zone.
Bakhmut has been at the center of intense fighting for months, with Russian troops, including large forces from the private Wagner Group, closing in on the largely destroyed town.
