The Ukrainian president, VolodÃmir Zelenski, landed last night in the Netherlands, coming from Finland, on a surprise visit that has taken him to The Hague, where he has visited the headquarters of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has met with members of the Dutch Government and Parliament and has reiterated its appeal to the international community to create a specific court to try Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression committed by Russia in invading his country.
Only a Nurenberg-style tribunal, the process by which the highest officials of Nazism were prosecuted after the Second World War, can judge the crime of aggression committed by Russia, “the supreme war crime, because without it all other would not have occurred”, Zelensky said in a speech entitled “There is no peace without justice” which began by calling for a minute’s silence for the victims of the shooting down of flight MH17 in 2014 (“All this pain of the Dutch was caused by Russian weapons and Russian hands”).
“Everyone would have liked to see another Vladimir here today, the one who deserves to be sentenced for criminal actions,” Zelensky, whose given name, Volodimir, is the Ukrainian version of it, said in The Hague. The ICC issued arrest warrants in March against the Russian president and the Russian presidential commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for their alleged responsibility for the illegal deportation of children from the occupied areas to Russia, actions that could constitute a war crime. Although there is nothing to suggest that Moscow is going to hand over its president, the Court’s orders do not expire and, for the time being, what they do is severely reduce the movement capacity of those indicated, since theoretically the countries that have ratified the convention For which this institution was created, they must stop him if he steps on their territory.
“I am sure of what we will see” and that Putin will be tried in The Hague, “because we are going to win,” Zelensky said. But, in his opinion, as he has been defending for a year, the work of the ICC, which cannot judge the crime of aggression, will not be enough to “do justice” and make it clear to Putin and the world that a country cannot be invaded. country without paying a price. “All wars have something in common, that their authors did not believe they would have to answer for their actions.” For this reason, “defeating the impunity of the aggression means defeating the origins of the aggression”, stressed the Ukrainian president, who has asked the international community not to limit itself to listing the shortcomings of international law in this field and “make decisions strong” to correct them by creating “a special court”, not a “hybrid” one, to try Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and “make Nuremberg a model”.
“We support Ukraine and we will continue to support Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra assured President Zelensky. The Government of the Netherlands, together with the three Baltic republics and Poland, supports within the European Union the idea of ​​creating a special court, Nurenberg type, to judge Russian aggression. But in order to go ahead with this initiative, which Zelenski has already defended in other international forums such as the United Nations, it is necessary to reach a broad agreement with the international community and for the moment there is no consensus on the matter.
Since the beginning of the year, Zelensky has made several surprise visits to allied countries in Europe. For security reasons, the details of his travels are not known until the last minute. This week the Ukrainian leader has participated by surprise in the Nordic summit held in Finland and in which the leaders of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland also participated. Last night, Zelensky landed at Schiphol, the main Dutch airport, and today he has moved to The Hague. After his meeting with members of the Dutch government and parliamentarians, his visit to the ICC and his speech at a nearby congress center, the Ukrainian leader met with Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Alexander De Croo. Today May 4th the Netherlands remembers the fallen in World War II. Although the Dutch government has clarified that Zelensky will not participate in official events, it is unknown if he will make any additional stops in Europe before returning to Ukraine.
