Ukrainian President Zelensky Calls for Creation of Special Tribunal for Russian Aggression

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has called for a special tribunal to be set up for the crime of “aggression”. He did so on Thursday in a speech at the World Forum in The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is located.

“Of course, we all would have preferred another Vladimir in The Hague,” Zelensky stated. He was referring to Russian President Putin. Zelensky’s first name Volodimir is the Ukrainian spelling of Vladimir.

Without justice, there is no peace, Zelensky said in The Hague on Thursday. He cited the Nuremberg Trials against the German Nazis after World War II as a model for a tribunal. “A lasting peace is only possible if we also hold the aggressors to account,” he said in his address to diplomats and senior officials. He called for “justice on a grand scale” and not “hybrid impunity”. But, according to the Ukrainian president, there is no question of making compromises.

That justice “can only be enforced by a tribunal,” he stressed. Zelensky also praised the efforts of the ICC, which launched an investigation shortly after the Russian invasion and issued an international warrant against Putin for war crimes in March.