He demands progress on the establishment of a special court “before the end of the war”, in his speech after receiving the Sakharov Prize
The people received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament this Wednesday for their “struggle and courage” during the Russian invasion. And as the personification of the resistance against Moscow, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelensky, was in charge of receiving the award, although he did not personally go to Strasbourg. In his acceptance speech, via videoconference, he expressed his gratitude to the European Union (EU) for its support to Kiev and urged to promote “as soon as possible” the establishment of a special court to try Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine to judge. .
He asked for support from the European Union to continue on that path. “I call on all of you to support this work. The court should get to work as soon as possible,” he said. Given the numerous killings and attacks on civilians taking place in the country today, Ukrainians “cannot wait for the end of the war” to judge these crimes the leader insisted. “Perhaps only after the end of the war, when we have liberated all our territory, will we find all the graves of terror. Only then will we be able to say how many lives the tyranny has claimed,” he added.
The European Commission already supported in November the creation of a specialized and independent court, backed by the United Nations, to try the material and intellectual authors of the crimes registered in Bucha, Irpin, Izium and dozens of Ukrainian cities. “Russia must pay for its appalling crimes, including its crime of aggression against a sovereign state,” the president of the European executive, Ursula von der Leyen, said at the time.
In addition to holding those responsible for the invasion of Ukraine accountable, Zelensky hopes this process will serve to “prevent such aggression from happening again.” In this nearly ten-month-long war, the devastation left by the Russian army “should be reflected in the verdicts,” he said, asking that there be no impunity and that those who organized and initiated the aggression be brought to justice.
The Ukrainian people were the winners of the prize by consensus of the political groups and, as European Parliament President Roberta Metsola added, “nobody deserves it anymore.” For his part, the Ukrainian president assured on Wednesday that his country will emerge victorious from this war and that it will put an end to the imperialist ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We will win so that there are no attempts to again apply a genocidal policy against our people, both in Ukraine and all over Europe,” he concluded.
Source: La Verdad
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