26/06/2025 Session
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked PACE for “real leadership” in its stand against Russian aggression and hailed Europe’s commitment to justice in an address to the Assembly just after the signature of an agreement to create a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.
“It was here in this Assembly, that the first call for such a tribunal was made,” Mr Zelenskyy said. “The idea was born here – and now it’s gaining real support from partner countries in Europe and beyond.”
“It will take strong political and legal co-operation to make sure every Russian war criminal faces justice - including Putin. This is the path we must walk – all the way to real charges and real verdicts,” he added.
The new Tribunal, signed earlier in the day by Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset and Mr Zelenskyy on behalf of the Ukrainian government, will have a mandate to prosecute senior leaders for the crime of aggression - the decision to use armed force against another state - in violation of the UN Charter.
Senior legal experts from a “core group” of around 40 states worked together with the Ukrainian authorities, the Council of Europe and the EU to draft the three legal instruments needed to establish the Tribunal.
“The aggressor must lose. We’re working on that. But justice matters too. It must work – so that war criminals have nowhere to hide, not in Europe, not anywhere. And in a way that sets a legal principle – NO rewards for aggression,” the Ukrainian President declared.
Welcoming Mr Zelenskyy to the Assembly chamber, PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos cited Aeschylus, who wrote: We must suffer, suffer into truth. "This is the daily reality of Ukraine. For over 1,200 days and nights, the people of Ukraine have lived what I once called a thousand nightmares.”
“And among those nightmares, one stands out as the most dangerous: that the world might become accustomed to this war. That a full-scale invasion of a sovereign state becomes normalised. That war crimes become invisible. But this Assembly – this Council – was created to stand precisely against such moral erosion.”
President Zelenskyy also answered questions from members of the Assembly.
