Zelensky calls for Russia to be prosecuted for war crimes

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US Attorney General Merrick Garland and senior European judicial officials on Friday, calling on Russia to be prosecuted internationally for war crimes.

Zelenskyy announced the meetings in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, hundreds of miles from the warfront, during his late-night video address to the nation.

“We are doing everything we can to ensure that the International Criminal Court succeeds in punishing Russian war criminals,” Zelenskyy said.

“The main theme of all these meetings and the meeting in Lviv is accountability,” he added. “The responsibility of Russia and its leaders is personal, for the aggression and terror against our state and our people.”

Zelenskyy said more than 70,000 Russian war crimes have been recorded so far.

“But unfortunately at the moment we don’t know all the crimes,” he added. “Much of our territory is still under occupation, and at present we cannot predict with certainty how much Russian crime we will uncover after the invaders are expelled.”

With Garland, the Attorney General of Great Britain, Victoria Prentis; the Attorney General of the Spanish State, Álvaro García Ortiz, and the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said UN humanitarian personnel were reporting “intense hostilities” near the besieged Ukrainian town of Bakhmuth, noting that the few humanitarian partners in the world organization who are on the ground are focused on evacuating the most vulnerable people from the conflict zone.

Bakhmut has been at the center of intense fighting for months, with Russian soldiers, including large forces from the private Wagner Group, closing in on the largely destroyed town.