Ukraine needs a separate institution for investigating and collecting evidence of international crimes committed by russia – human rights defender

Over 100,000 international crimes committed by russia have been recorded in Ukraine. A separate institution should be created in Ukraine to collect evidence of these crimes and investigate them effectively.

Volodymyr Yavorskyy, lawyer, human rights defender, Program Manager at the Center for Civil Liberties, made this statement during a discussion at Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.

“First of all, we must finally have a separate institution, which must be tasked with investigating and collecting evidence of international crimes, specifically. We already have more than 100,000 crimes. If we create such an institution now, there are 10 years’ worth of work. If we do not create such an institution, these crimes will never be investigated, and this is 90% of these crimes. Therefore, for this, we need, first of all, to have proper investigative agencies,” he emphasized.

The human rights defender also emphasized that constant cooperation is required from Ukraine’s diplomatic corps to ensure the country’s proactivity in international organizations.

“I will recall only one example. Ukraine has a case, for example, in the International Criminal Court, there is a warrant for putin’s arrest. Until this today, Ukraine has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, that is, we do not recognize it in principle. Even more, we have been associate members of this court since 2014, but we do not even have a representative from the diplomatic corps who would simply attend the sessions of this court. Ukraine is just not there at all. We don’t even have an appointed person in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who would oversee work with the ICC. This is nonsense, and this is such an impractical and strange position in various structures, and this cannot lead to positive results unless we become proactive,” explained Volodymyr Yavorskyy.

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