President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed the Agreement on the Establishment of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
25 June 2025 23:03
On June 25 in Strasbourg, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset signed the Agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.
"Today's agreement and this Tribunal give us a real chance to bring justice for the crime of aggression. Other institutions, even international ones, do not have the tools to do this, and we need to show clearly that aggression leads to punishment—and we must make it happen together, across all of Europe," the President emphasized in his address to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
The Agreement, which includes the Statute of the Special Tribunal as an integral annex, officially launches a new, independent international legal mechanism aimed at bringing to justice the highest political and military leadership of the Russian Federation for the crime of aggression—namely, for the very act of invading the territory of Ukraine back in February 2014.
The Special Tribunal is the first international judicial body since World War II with jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute individuals, regardless of their position, suspected of committing the crime of aggression.
The establishment of the Tribunal marks the culmination of years of legal work by Ukraine, its partner countries, the Council of Europe, and the European Union to ensure justice for the victims of Russian aggression.
The Tribunal will complement the architecture of international criminal justice, and its establishment sends a clear signal that accountability is inevitable for those who violate the fundamental norms of international law and seek to destroy entire nations.
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