UK Offers Help In Creation Of Special Tribunal For Lukashenka, Putin

London called on other G7 countries to join this work.

The United Kingdom offered qualified backing for tribunal to hold Russian and Belarusian civil and military leadership, including dictators Putin and Lukashenka, accountable for the military crimes they had committed in Ukraine.

This has been reported by The Guardian.

The British government said it had been invited by Ukraine to join a group of international partners pursuing a mechanism for accountability, and encouraged other G7 countries to also take part.

The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said: “Russia’s war crimes must not go unpunished. That is why Britain has accepted Ukraine’s invitation to join this coalition bringing our legal expertise to the table to explore options to ensure Russia’s leaders are held to account.”

The campaign for a specialised court has been led by the British barrister Philippe Sands KC, the former prime minister Gordon Brown and the Ukrainian government itself.

The British government added that the tribunal should be based on Ukrainian national justice, but contain international elements.

The Foreign Office acknowledged that the ICC did not have jurisdiction over crimes of aggression allegedly committed in and against Ukraine, but stressed the details of the proposal would matter and that the UK was willing to explore a “hybrid” tribunal, ie, a specialised court integrated into Ukrainian justice system with international elements.

As Charter97.org reported earlier, on January 19, the European Parliament adopted a resolution supporting the creation of an international tribunal to bring Putin, Lukashenka and other perpetrators of the crime of aggression against Ukraine to justice. The document was supported by 472 MEPs. At the same time, 33 parliamentarians abstained, and 19 opposed the resolution.