51^st Human Rights Council 

Item 4

Interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the situation of human rights in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression 

Statement by Anton Korynevych, Ambassador-at-large,

Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine 

(23 September 2022, Geneva) 

Mr. President,

We thank the Commission of Inquiry for today’s presentation, which will become an important milestone on a path to accountability for Russia’s crimes against the people of Ukraine.

In February, as soon as Putin’s regime launched its unprovoked and unjustified full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it became evident that it will not shy away from the cruelest methods and that this war will have a devastating toll on millions of civilian lives.

Starting from day one, Ukraine has launched a comprehensive effort with the involvement of all relevant national and international mechanisms and institutions to guarantee no escape from accountability for this act of aggression and numerous crimes committed in its course.

We consider the Commission of Inquiry to be a crucial element of this undertaking and count on it to live up to the achievements of its predecessors that ensured there was no impunity for the perpetrators in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, DRC and other places where international crimes were carried out with the brutality akin to that of Putin’s regime.

Eight months of russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made the international community witness to the atrocities not seen on our continent for decades and gave strong pretext for this demand for accountability.

The mass killings in the cities like Bucha and others in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions shook the world’s consciousness, and we thank the Commission of Inquiry for its particular attention to these crimes in line with its mandate.

New revelations prove that such atrocities are part of russia’s consistent tactics of terror against the people of Ukraine. This is evidenced by the findings on the territories of the Kharkiv region, which were liberated two weeks ago. As we speak, the exhumation of bodies continues at a mass burial site near Izium, where more than 440 graves have been found in the aftermath of the Russian occupation. Russia repeated in Izium what it had done in Bucha and the world must react.

We ask the Commission of Inquiry to investigate this situation and provide its objective assessment in its further reporting.

We also count on it, as well as on all UN human rights mechanisms, to make sure that the world does not forget other atrocities perpetrated by Russia:

• In Mariupol where tens of thousands were murdered amid the total destruction of once prosperous cities,
• In Odesa, Vinnytsya, Kremenchuk and Kramatorsk where Russian rocket strikes killed dozens, including small children,
• in Kharkiv and Mykolayiv whose residents are daily subjected to shelling and loss of loved ones,
• In Severodonentsk, Avdiivka and Lysychansk which were wiped out from the face of the Earth.

We expect that the accountability will come for

• the murder of almost 400 hundred Ukrainian children with Russian rockets and tanks,
• thousands of those of our citizens whose track has been lost in Russian torture chambers,
• inhumane treatment of Ukraine’s defenders in Russian captivity,
• tens of millions whose lives and futures have been forever affected by the unspeakable horror that the Russian aggression has wrecked on our people.

It is our common duty to make sure these crimes are not left unpunished.

Mr. President,

While it is crucial to ensure accountability for human rights violations and atrocities related to the Russian aggression, we recognize that the people in Ukraine are not the only ones affected. Russia’s war has put numerous countries on the verge of hunger, exacerbated extreme poverty, created the threat of nuclear catastrophe unseen before, undermined the livelihoods and prospects of millions around the world.

These human rights repercussions stem from an act of aggression by a P5 member of the UN Security Council, which if left unanswered, will drag us into a dark world of impunity and permissiveness. We believe that there has never been a more appropriate time to fill in the glaring gap in the architecture of international criminal justice related to the prosecution of the crime of aggression against Ukraine. This is why we call on the establishment of a Special Tribunal which would have a specific jurisdiction over the crime of aggression against Ukraine, and investigate and prosecute senior political and military leadership of the russian federation for committing this crime, and call on all relevant parties to join us in this cause.

Together with other nations, organizations, and institutions, Ukraine will use every available tool to seek justice for thousands of innocent victims of this crime and we will not rest until perpetrators are held to account.

I thank you.