Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets the US in Kiev: a 10-point plan for a military operation in the next 10 months

The war in Ukraine is set to go on for 10 months after President Zelensky visited the US, according to Moscow.

“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity,” Harris said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. She added, “To all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors who are complicit in those crimes, you will be held to account.”

The Ukrainian government will achieve nothing, no matter how much military support the West provides, according to Maria Zakharova.

The situation on the ground and the reality of the war in Ukraine are taken into account when setting tasks within the framework of a special military operation.

Zelensky gave a historic speech from the US Capitol expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began.

However, the Kremlin denounced the transaction and said the US supplying Ukraine with Patriot missile systems will prolong the Ukrainian people’s “suffering.”

The United States and other countries are constantly expanding the range and raising the technical level of weapons they sell toUkraine, said the Kremlin in a conference call. “This does not contribute to a speedy settlement of the situation, on the contrary.”

There were no calls for peace. Zelensky repeated the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday.

Peskov told journalists, however, that Wednesday’s meeting showed the US is waging a proxy war of “indirect fighting” against Russia down “to the last Ukrainian.”

The United States Institute of Peace, the Atlantic Council and the Ukrainian Embassy hosted an event last month in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a tribunal to investigate crimes of aggression.

The International Criminal Court’s view of crimes against humanity: comparing Russian actions in Ukraine and the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

According to The Observer, a copy of the statement was shared with British politicians, which included opposition leader Keir Starmer and former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith.

The ICC is unable to probe a crime of aggression if the alleged act is committed by a state that is not party to the Rome statute which established the court, unless the UN Security Council refers the matter to it.

During an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday, Brown said that having dealt with Russian President Vladimir Putin while he was in office, he believes that the “only thing” Putin “understands is strength.”

“To start a criminal and unprovoked war is to open the door to thousands of crimes committed during hostilities and in occupied territory,” the president added.

The Nuremberg trials, held between 1945 and1946, saw Nazi officials tried in a similar way for planning and executing invasions of other countries.

The UK is not the first to publicly express support for this kind of tribunal, which was initially proposed by Anglo-French lawyer Philippe Sands in February.

The EU is willing to work with the international community to get the broadest international support for the court, said Von der Leyen.

We looked at the evidence in comparison to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. We know the legal standards and there is no doubt these are crimes against humanity,” she said at the annual Munich Security Conference in Germany.

While the latest crimes against humanity determination is significant, it remains largely symbolic for now. It does not immediately trigger any specific consequences, nor does it give the US the ability to prosecute the Russians involved with perpetrating crimes against humanity. However, it could provide international bodies such as the International Criminal Court, which work to hold perpetrators accountable, with evidence to effectively try to prosecute those crimes.

Harris’ announcement Saturday comes days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is a concerted effort by the Biden Administration to show commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty and unity among Western allies who have provided billions in aid and weapons to combat Russia. The vice president will visit Poland on Monday.

Ukraine needs justice: The U.S. is ready to support the fight against indiscriminate perpetrators of Russian terrorism and human rights violations

As a former prosecutor in California, she knew the importance of gathering facts and holding them up against the law.

There was evidence of indiscriminate Russian attacks, including a maternity hospital bombing that killed a pregnant mother in Mariupol, and a theater bombing that killed hundreds of people. The vice president spoke of the horrific images out of Bucha that showed men and women shot and left to rot in the streets and reports by the United Nations of a 4-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by a Russian soldier.

Like other Ukrainians who believe a government should serve and protect its people, rather than plunder them, I know how much we have achieved in rooting out the corrupt legacies of Soviet rule that have lingered so long in our system. I know how much blood was spilled in Kyiv’s Maidan Square during our Revolution of Dignity in 2014 by people who wanted to break from Russia’s toxic political grip.

$30 million has been given by the US to investigate war crimes in Ukraine, according to the White House fact sheet. The Biden administration is seeking another nearly $30 million from Congress to bolster efforts on this issue.

In the face of these facts, we need to keep our commitment to accountability. Let us renew our commitment to the rule of law,” she said. “As for the United States, we will continue to support the judicial process in Ukraine and international investigations because justice must be served. Let us all agree, on behalf of all the victims, known and unknown: Justice must be served.”

Harris said that the US would back Ukrainians for as long as it takes.

Republicans are in charge of the US House of Representatives, and so have promised no “blank checks”, so questions about how much more funding the US will provide to the war effort in Ukraine have swirled in recent months. There were a lot of congressional leaders at the conference. This included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

They understand the stakes and are here together. The leadership of these members has been vital to America’s support of Ukraine, and President Biden and I know that their support for Ukraine will continue,” the vice president said.

Peace must be in line with the principles of the United Nations Charter. It is not in the interests of any other country to have a result like that, and that it shows the seizure by force of territory.

If Russia succeeds in getting away with it, our enemies will conclude that we can get away with it. And that’s not in anyone’s interest because it’s a recipe for a world of conflict,” he added.

Also in Munich, CIA Director Bill Burns said Saturday that intelligence sharing with NATO allies has proved essential to supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

“It’s a two-way street. We’ve learned a lot from our NATO partners. We learn a lot from the Ukrainians as well,” Burns said in a separate panel discussion. That, he said, “has been the kind of essential cement in the coalition that the president has organized.”

“We have also seen nations like North Korea and Iran send weapons in support of Russia’s brutal war. We are also troubled that Beijing has deepened its relationship with Moscow since the war began,” Harris said.

She said that if China were to provide lethal support to Russia, they would reward aggression, continue the killing and undermine a rules-based order.

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, will visit Russia in July, according to CNN, in the first visit to the country from a Chinese official in that role since the invasion of Ukraine.

Security Conference Summary: Security Conference Presented at the Fourth High-Level Security Conference of the US-China Cooperation Working Group on Security Issues in Ukraine

The Secretary of State said the US will hold those responsible to account, while emphasizing the importance of this designation. Blinken is attending the meeting.

Ukraine is not a state party to treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The country has been allowed to accept the court’s jurisdiction over alleged war crimes occurring in its borders. After Russia invaded Ukrainian, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court asked for permission to open an investigation into alleged war crimes.

The first high-level meeting between the U.S. and China since the U.S. shot down an alleged Chinese balloon took place late on the last night of the conference.

The U.S. remains concerned about Beijing invading Taiwan and about its blossoming relationship with Moscow. The relationship between the US and Beijing has deteriorated further due to “balloon-gate.”

Beijing, however, insists that the balloon was a civilian craft used for scientific research, and that shooting it down was an overreaction and a violation of international practice.

The security conference is usually attended by heads of state, generals, intelligence chiefs and top diplomats from around the world.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine set the tone of the three-day conference by urging Western leaders to act rather than talk, calling via videolink for the speedy deliveries of weapons and warning of dwindling supplies on the battleground.

The U.S. Contributions to the Codes of Criminal Procedures at the 2015 e+ e- – World Conference on War Crimes

This year, the U.S. made its presence at the gathering felt with a record number of delegates, including significant bipartisan and bicameral representation from Congress.

On the conference stage and on the sidelines, there was more than just Europe and members of NATO at play.

There are provisions in the codes against crimes against humanity in many countries. The ICC, the International Criminal Court, has a similar provision, and there is an effort now which the United States is supporting to look into the possibility of setting up a center for the investigation of war crimes, which would include the crimes against humanity and also the crime of aggression. The United States has provisions also for investigating and prosecuting war crimes. And I can tell you that we have actually identified suspects who we would have jurisdiction over for committing war crimes. I’m afraid I’ve disclosed as much as I’m capable of disclosing at this point. We may be able to speak more as we get further along.

What Chinese Foreign Policy Thinks about Taiwan Warfare and the Security of the Middle East: A Comment from the German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius

Wang insisted that respect for the sovereignty of independent nations is one of the top priorities of Beijing’s foreign policy. He spoke out against interference on the issue of Taiwan. Wang said that keeping peace across Taiwan Strait meant opposing Taiwanese independence forces.

Wang Yi didn’t specify what peace in the region means, and Europe’s leaders committed to investing more in weapons.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said member states must work together with the defense industry to scale up the production of munitions for Ukraine which, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is using them quicker than Europe can replace them.

The Chancellor of Germany asked his European partners to follow through on their pledges to deliver battle tanks to Ukraine. It was ironic for him to be having to ask others to deliver Leopard tanks quickly because they’d been putting pressure on him to do so in the past.

Scholz’s new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius continued in the same vein and pushed for higher military spending within Europe and NATO. He went one step further than Scholz’s promise to meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defense, and called on the NATO alliance to agree on 2% as a minimum commitment, aiming for higher. Germany currently does not meet the 2% target and is not expected to do so for another couple of years, despite Scholz’s additional €100 billion boost to the Bundeswehr budget.

Scholz remained tight-lipped about requests from Ukraine to send fighter jets, having publicly said no on several occasions. He warned against hasty decisions and the risks of escalation, despite the fact that Germany’s support is steadfast.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/19/1158184942/4-takeaways-from-this-years-important-munich-security-conference

Human Rights Lawyer in the Era of the Cold War: A Response to the Kremlin Critics from Munich Security Conference Chairman Christoph Heusgen

Prominent Kremlin critics — including exiled oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chess champion Gary Kasparov, and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of jailed opposition political Alexey Navalny — were pointedly offered seats instead.

The Munich Security Conference is known for promoting dialogue, even between adversaries, but MSC Chair Christoph Heusgen says he did not want the conference to serve as a podium for Russian propaganda.

Heusgen admitted in an interview earlier this week that he left last year’s conference with the belief that Russia would not invade Ukraine. Four days later, the invasion began.

Since my organization, the Center for Civil Liberties, was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize last year, I’ve met a lot of people around the world. They often ask what motivates me to keep on going amid this terrible conflict. How do I manage to get up every day, eat breakfast, have coffee and then turn to my daily work as a human rights lawyer: documenting the now thousands of hideous atrocities that have been committed — and are being still committed — by the Russian Federation’s armed forces against the people of Ukraine.

During the first weeks of the war, I was angry. Anger that these Russians with their tanks and artillery and planes should decide they had the right to take away our freedom; anger that they should decide we Ukrainians can’t have a democratic future.

During this revolution,Ukraine made a lot of progress on a democratic path. There was a way to give more rights to the locals. The legislation made it difficult to hide misuses of power. Changes to our Constitution opened the way to judicial reform. There are a lot of things that still need to be done, but we were on the right track.

The Human Story of War Crimes: Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Second Visit to Ukraine During the First Ukrainian War Crime-Injugation

Together with other organizations, we have recorded over 31,000 cases of war crimes and abuse of civilians in cities, towns and tiny villages across our country up to the end of 2022. Yes, this is part of a wider effort, collecting evidence towards that goal of holding to account the perpetrators. We are telling the human story of what happened to bring home that it was not just numbers but people that were hurt.

Because amid so many disappointments — in the ability of the international order to protect us, in the idea that the laws of war protect civilians — I have found we can still rely on people.

This spirit was present in the square during the protests. Those protests kept on, despite the police beatings, and then the killings, because we believed in something better. And then it came.

This love is extended to the idea that a country that respects human rights can rise from this. Where perhaps we no longer need a Center for Civil Liberties to fight for them. Perhaps even to a vision of the world where this spirit of shared humanity prevails.

Attorney General Merrick Garland made an unannounced trip to Ukraine on Friday, according to a Justice Department official, his second trip to the country after Russia invaded a little more than a year ago.

LVIV, Ukraine— Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with war crimes prosecutors in Ukraine and said U.S. investigators had already “zeroed in” on what they say are specific crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces in an unannounced visit to a country at war.

The attorney general last went to Ukraine in June and similarly committed the United States’ assistance in finding and prosecuting those who committed war crimes. During that trip, Garland announced that he was appointing Eli Rosenbaum, the top US so-called “Nazi hunter,” to lead a Justice Department team to identify and prosecute war criminals.

“The United States supports what is now being developed in The Hague, sponsored by Eurojust, looking into the possibility of creating that court [to charge crimes of aggression,]” Garland testified.

“There are concerns that we have to take into account with respect to how that might deal with our own service members and other circumstances,” he continued. “We have to be sure that the appropriate guardrails are up. We support any number of different ways in which crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression are investigated.

The Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture – made up of federal prosecutors, investigators and analysts – has worked for the past year to target the complex web of wealth surrounding Russian oligarchs and Kremlin insiders. Since the beginning of the war, the Justice Department has seized more than $500 million in yachts, properties and other assets from people who support the Russian government and have evaded US sanctions, according to a department news release.

The department brought over thirty indictments against supporters of the Kremlin and Russian military, most of which implicated individuals in supporting the war in Ukraine.

Garland said that the perpetrators of those crimes would not get away with it.

The attorney general pointed to the long-term effort to identify and remove Nazi war criminals who fled America as evidence that the United States has a long memory about war crimes. After World War II, many of these cases advanced.

Congress recently granted DOJ the power to bring to justice other war criminals from other parts of the world so long as they’re living or staying inside America’s borders.

He mentioned areas of close cooperation already going on with Ukraine and allies to keep track of complex streams of evidence, provide forensic assistance and training, and advise on environmental crimes committed by Ukrainians during the ongoing conflict. Garland said that he wanted to place a legal adviser from the U.S. in the country.

There’s no doubt that the Ukrainians are looking at the people they have in front of them, who they are able to capture in Ukraine, but are also looking at those who are directing the war and against them. Those are much more than one-offs. It’s clear. I’m taking a look at what happened in Bucha, in Mariupol. The plans to forcibly deport Ukrainian children from occupied areas into Russia are pre planned, as are the killings of civilians. And the Ukrainians and our prosecutors and the members of the JIT, the joint investigative team, that will be entering into an [agreement] with are all trying to find the people who to identify, build evidence against the people who are directing this.

The attorney general said the US would support separate international efforts targeting people who are responsible for the crime of aggression, pointing out that the effort was led by his predecessor.

A Conversation with Attorney General Merrick Garland about a Holocaust-Innocent Veteran’s Grandparent and the U.S. Supreme Court

He ended his remarks by pointing to a bit of personal history. His grandmother made it into the U.S. before Nazis invaded their homeland. Two of her siblings perished in the Holocaust. Survivors are still in the dark about what happened to them, and when.

On his way to Ukraine for an unannounced visit last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke about upholding the rule of law inside the U.S. and overseas in an exclusive interview with NPR.

He spoke in the interview about his upcoming two-year anniversary as attorney general and the special counsels who are investigating former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161300649/ukraine-victims-of-war-crimes-russia-attorney-general-merrick-garland

The U.S. should not be a place where any war criminal can hide in the future: I would like to hear from the Ukrainians

The town where my grandmother comes from is not far from where we’re going to be. She’s one of five children. She and two of her siblings made it to the United States long before the Nazis invaded. Two didn’t. They were killed in the Holocaust. My dad was named after one of them. But we don’t know really exactly what happened to them. It’s important for families and descendants to know what happened when there’s been a period of atrocities in their home country.

From the rule of law side, it’s very important that we do everything we can to deter this kind of aggression from ever happening again. One, we assist the Ukrainians in investigating and prosecuting the war crimes, which will, we hope, both deter others in future conflicts, but also the Russians in this particular war. And second, we prosecute sanctions if we have sanctions evaders. We impose sanctions on those who allow the Russian war machine to continue. We grab their assets when they break the sanctions and prosecute them, so other people don’t facilitate the war, I think of the oligarchs here.

On declarations he, along with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have made regarding Russia having committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine

Both in the short and the long term, we see people in eitherUkraine or areas of Russia that are being liberated by the Ukrainians. We can extradite people who are in other parts of the world. And the United States has a very long memory and it took a very long time for some of the Nazi war criminals to be found. But eventually they were. In short term, medium term and long term. But one thing we want to ensure is that the United States not be a place where any war criminal can hide. So anyone who does should know that we will bring them to justice and put them on trial in the United States.

His company is called Wagner. It’s a company of mercenaries, essentially, which has now expanded to prisoners taken from Russian jails and shoved into the front lines now after a Russian war in the Donbas [region] against the Ukrainians. The man is causing trouble in North Africa. And Mr. Prigozhin is an extremely bad actor. And I suppose that accounts for the way in which I spoke about him at the hearing.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161300649/ukraine-victims-of-war-crimes-russia-attorney-general-merrick-garland

Interference for Special Counsels: Can I Go Out of the Door?… Sure. I’m not on my way out the door

So there is no daily supervision by anyone in the Justice Department of the special counsels, but special counsel regulations do provide for reports from time to time. And those have taken place. But not on a daily or weekly basis. Not on a daily or weekly basis.

The investigations are under the control of special counsels. And even if I knew their timetables, which I don’t, Justice Department policy would bar me from making any comment.

This is a job that gives me the ability to pursue the rule of law, to support the amazing career lawyers and agents who work in the Justice Department and to make sure that they can do their jobs without interference. It’s my job to run interference for them, so that they can do their jobs in the right way, and I’m honored to be able to have had the opportunity to do that. … No, I’m not on my way out the door.