A Russian missile strike on a city in central Ukraine on Thursday that killed at least 23 people, including three children, added urgency to an international conference in The Hague aimed at coordinating the prosecution of potential war crimes committed during the conflict. committed.
“In the morning, Russian missiles hit our city of Vinnytsia, an ordinary peaceful city,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, addressing the conference on Thursday via video link. He said the strike destroyed homes and a medical facility and called the attack an “act of Russian terror.”
There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the attack. The government of President Vladimir V. Putin has denied targeting civilians.
At the conference in The Hague, home to the headquarters of the International Criminal Court, 45 countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, heard testimony about atrocities and agreed to coordinate their investigations. They also pledged about $20 million to assist the court and the attorney general’s office in Ukraine.
Barbarism is part of every conflict, but the process of documenting the episodes that have arisen since Russia invaded Ukraine in February is unusual, partly because of the number of investigators working on it and partly because investigations and even prosecutions have begun while the war is still in full swing.
In addition to Ukraine’s own legal system, an alphabetical soup of organizations investigates possible war crimes, including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. One goal of the conference is to prevent those entities from tripping over each other in their search for evidence and witnesses.
Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra told reporters that the conference marked “a huge step in coordination”. Since neither Ukraine nor Russia is part of the International Criminal Court, the Netherlands would also consider establishing an ad hoc war crimes tribunal.
According to the country’s Attorney General, Iryna Venediktova, four trials have already taken place in Ukraine and thousands more investigations have been opened. Impunity is not an option, she said.
The wide range of national and international organizations interested in Russia’s actions in Ukraine leads some observers to note that less attention is paid to conflicts in other countries, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.
Mr Hoekstra, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, acknowledges the issue and says that the joint effort in Ukraine should not be a one-off.