Kyiv, Warsaw, Vilnius Set Up Joint Working Group to Investigate Russia’s War Crimes

Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania set up a joint working group to investigate war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine; collect, exchange and store evidence of war crimes committed by the Russian Federation; and detect assets of war criminals in order to freeze and confiscate them.

As the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine informs, the agreement on the establishment of the group was signed by Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova, Prosecutor General of Lithuania Nida Grunskienė, and Prosecutor General and Minister of Justice of Poland Zbigniew Zobro. The document was signed by the countries’ representatives to Eurojust.

“Our joint investigation team is open for other participating states. Currently, apart from Ukraine, nine other countries carry out their investigations into the war waged by Russia: Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Germany, Sweden, Latvia, Norway, and France. We also expect the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to join,” Iryna Venediktova said.

It is reported that Poland and Lithuania already are working with witnesses and victims – Ukrainians who fled their homes due to the war and went to these countries. Moreover, special secure sites were launched in both countries to collect evidence – analogues of a single resource of the Prosecutor General’s Office  warcrimes.gov.ua.

Meanwhile, the UN International Court of Justice set a deadline for consideration of Ukraine’s lawsuit against Russia over the latter’s “genocide” allegations, which Moscow used as a justification for the war.

The Court ordered that Ukraine must submit its memorandum by 23 September 2022, and Russia must respond to it by 23 March 23.

Bohdan Marusyak