UA
FR
DEThe Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) almost unanimously supported a resolution calling for an investigation into the crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine.
As the PACE press service reports, the document was approved on the basis of a report by Frank Schwabe (Germany, SOC).
Russia’s aggression provoked the direst humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War, posed a challenge to global governance, and led to a steep rise in energy costs and food insecurity, the parliamentarians pointed out.
The Assembly confirmed its condemnation in the strongest terms of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and its solidarity with Ukraine and its people, reaffirming its unwavering support for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.
PACE said it was “alarmed at the mounting evidence of atrocities committed by Russian armed forces” and expressed its full support for all efforts aimed at investigating all crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine.
Maria Mezentseva, Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE, specifies that the document calls on the Council of Europe members to immediately establish a special international criminal tribunal to investigate and prosecute the crime of aggression committed by Russia’s political and military leadership and to provide the necessary financial support.
The resolution also recommends that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe should appoint a special envoy for the consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
The resolution calls for continued pressure on the Russian Federation to cease hostilities, withdraw troops from Ukraine, and comply with international law.
Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack said at the UN meeting that the United States had credible information that the Russian military had executed Ukrainians who were attempting to surrender on the outskirts of Donetsk. She added that such actions violated a core principle of the law of war: the prohibition against the summary execution of civilians and of combatants who are hors de combat by virtue of surrender, injury or other forms of incapacitation.
Bohdan Marusyak
