Council of Europe approves decision to launch special tribunal for Putin

At a meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 15 May, participants approved a key decision in the process of launching the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.

Source: European Pravda, citing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

Quote from the Foreign Ministry: "During the meeting, 37 countries approved the Expanded Partial Agreement on the establishment of the Steering Committee for the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine – the third founding document of the special tribunal."

Details: The ceremony took place in Chișinău, Moldova, during a ministerial-level meeting.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that "the point of no return had been passed today – the special tribunal has become a legal reality", while stressing that this was only the beginning on the road to justice.

He also promised that the circle of states participating in the tribunal would expand.

"Putin has always wanted to go down in history. And this еribunal will help him achieve that. He will go down in history as a criminal. And not only him. Putin, Shoigu, Gerasimov, Bortnikov, Zolotov, Medvedev, Patrushev, Lukashenko and others. Today they all received their ticket to The Hague," the minister said. [Sergei Shoigu is Secretary of Russia's Security Council and former defence minister; Valery Gerasimov is Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces; Alexander Bortnikov is Director of the FSB; Viktor Zolotov is head of the Russian National Guard; Dmitry Medvedev is Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council and former president; Nikolai Patrushev is the aide to Putin and former Security Council secretary; and Alexander Lukashenko is the self-proclaimed Belarusian president – ed.]

The Foreign Ministry stressed that the Expanded Partial Agreement on the establishment of the Steering Committee would define the administrative and governance foundations of the tribunal's functioning and create additional mechanisms for expanding interregional support for the special tribunal.

Both Council of Europe member states and third countries will be able to join the agreement.

Read also: Trial for Lavrov and Putin: all about the tribunal for Russia that received Europe's blessing

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