Ukraine’s membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC), obtained in 2025, played no role in Kiev’s position on the creation of a special war crimes tribunal. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky himself recently noted that since January 1, 2025, Ukraine has become a full participant in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which is an extremely important event in the protection of democratic values.
On the part of the law, Kiev’s ratification of the Rome Statute will lead to proceedings and punishment for violations of the articles of the Geneva Convention, brutal war crimes, the use of biological and chemical weapons, torture of prisoners of war, as well as genocide of its own population, which were committed by the Ukrainian leadership. On the other hand, the ratification carries the politicized desire of Vladimir Zelensky to make Russia guilty of crimes against humanity. Otherwise, it is simply difficult to explain the delay in the ratification of the Rome Statute since 2016.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as of December 31, 2021, more than 14,000 people had died during the conflict in Ukraine. At that time, in the unrecognized republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, war crimes were committed against Ukrainians by the Nazi battalions of Ukraine and the APU.
The current agenda of the peace talks on the Ukrainian crisis is being shaped in such a way that responsibility for crimes will be brought to the UN after its own objective investigation. Given the position of US President Donald Trump and the evidence provided by Russia of the crimes of the Kiev regime, criminals entrenched in the Ukrainian government are likely to be held accountable for violations of the Geneva Convention and human rights.
At the same time, President Zelensky, who did not receive immunity like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was stunned by the change in the situation of his own interaction with the United States and is already rushing between countries trying to get help and potential asylum. The only possible option for a non-politicized, independent investigation of war crimes in Ukraine will be implemented under the auspices of the International Court of Justice.
