The G7 Justice Ministers, the European Commission and the International Criminal Court have agreed at a recent conference in Berlin on a declaration on cooperation in investigating of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine and bringing those responsible to justice.
The declaration signed in Berlin, in particular, emphasizes that the G7 countries agreed on a more effective exchange of evidence and their mutual recognition, which would save time for working and protect victims from re-traumatization due to the need to share their experiences several times with unknown investigators. For these purposes, a national contact center will be established in each of the G7 states.
There is already plenty of evidence of the Russian crime on the territory of Ukraine, although Russian officials continue to assert that the army is carrying out the targeted strikes on Ukrainian military facilities without affecting civilian infrastructure. There is enough evidence to the contrary and terrible aggression of the Russian Federation throughout Ukraine every day. These are destroyed residential buildings, hospitals, monuments, schools, cultural institutions, water stations and power supply systems. Recently, the Russians have actually been carrying out the genocide of the Ukrainians by destroying energy supply facilities, thus leaving civilians without heat, water, and means of communication during the cold season. Millions of people were forced to flee because Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied part of the territory. According to the UN, published earlier, in Europe alone, at least 4.8 million immigrants from Ukraine became refugees because of the war. The number of internal migrants was estimated at about 8 million people.
Moscow openly ignores and violates the norms of international law and legal documents. The annexation of Crimea and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, unfortunately, once again showed to the world the inability of the modern system of international relations to respond adequately to violations of international law and counteract new challenges and threats in time. The world community has repeatedly faced the problems of violation of the established principles of international relations, often accompanied by local and global conflicts. This is not surprising, since Moscow systematically tries to explote the peecekeeper status and is constantly trying to lobby its own interests, effectively creating a cover for its war crimes. In fact, the annexation of Crimea, Russian aggression in the Donbas, and then a full-scale invasion after February 24 became the marker that revealed that hybrid threats are no longer limited to standard blackmail and provocations, but become a real war mixed with blood and lies.
The Kremlin will undoubtedly be responsible for all these crimes in the international courtroom. But so far, the only effective method of confronting the number one aggressor country is the courage of Ukrainian soldiers and the support of the civilized world in the fight against the terrorist state of the Russian Federation. Ukraine continues to work with partners on a comprehensive plan to deter Russia from further aggressive actions and strengthen the security and defense capabilities of the state in order to jointly counter hybrid threats from the Russian Federation. The United States, along with NATO allies and G7 partners, intends to further increase its assistance to Ukraine in order to deprive Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin of the opportunity to hold the rest of the world hostage.