Ukraine has intensified its efforts to bring the occupiers to justice. However, there must be an international tribunal for everything they have done against Ukraine, its people, for every act of terrorism by Russian troops on the territory of our state.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated this in his address to fellow countrymen on March 16.
The head of state noted that an investigative group of the International Criminal Court has started working in Ukraine; together with Ukrainian law enforcement officers, they are collecting pieces of evidence and facts of war crimes of the invaders on the territory of our state.
"I spoke with Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He is already in Ukraine. He has already started working. So the occupiers will be held responsible for all war crimes against Ukrainians," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The President stressed that Russian troops had inflicted hundreds of times more damage on Ukraine than Donbas in 8 years of war. The most affected are territories of Donbas, border areas in the Russian direction, the Kyiv region and southern Ukraine. The regions about which Russian propagandists have always spoken as people's residence, especially close to Russia, are most affected.
"There are no non-nuclear weapons that the occupiers have not yet used against our people. This is what they call closeness. This is what they friendship. This is, as they said in Moscow, a 'divided nation,'" the head of state said.
The President reiterated that in Mariupol, the occupiers seized a hospital, and captured patients and staff. The occupiers also pursued the residents of neighbouring houses. More than 400 people are being held hostage by the Russian military. The occupiers used the hospital as a firing position to shell the city.
"This next crime of the Russian military against Mariupol is no different from Basayev's seizure of the hospital in Budyonnivsk. Although ... It is different. Now it is even sneakier," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The President of Ukraine repeated that the Russian state had become an outright terrorist.
"And they are not ashamed. But they will answer. The world is already beginning to understand that without recognising Russia as a terrorist state, it will be impossible to restore justice to Ukraine. It will be impossible to restore international order," Zelensky said.