Creation of special tribunal for Russian war criminals: Zelenskyy's only order that Foreign Minister could not fulfil

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has admitted that the creation of the special tribunal for Russian war criminals was the only case where he failed to fulfil President Volodymyr Zelensky's order.

Source: Kuleba during the Yalta European Strategy forum on 8-9 September in Kyiv, as reported by European Pravda

Quote: "We need a special tribunal to create a precedent for punishing the Russian leaders, including President Putin, a prime minister whose name I cannot remember yet, and Foreign Minister Lavrov. Instead, the hybrid tribunal does answer the question of how to punish this trio."

Details: "Those who stand against the creation of the special tribunal make it clear that they consider Russia's crimes in Ukraine less important than the crimes committed during the war in Yugoslavia," Kuleba said.

The Ukrainian minister admitted that the position of the G7 is leaning towards a hybrid tribunal even though a lot of countries, including Ukraine, support the creation of a special tribunal.

"The president has recently asked me what we created [to promote the idea of a special tribunal – ed.], and for the first time as a minister, I admitted that I could not propose a solution," Kuleba said.

Despite this, the Minister remains a supporter of such a tribunal.

"If the law does not meet the goal of achieving justice, then the legislation must be changed. So, then justice will become possible," Kuleba summarised.

Background: The Ukrainian authorities admitted that they would not be able to get support for the creation of the tribunal they proposed based on the UN General Assembly resolution, and instead agreed to a slightly modified format of the so-called hybrid tribunal.

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