Slutsky and Ordzhonikidze explained the impossibility of creating a tribunal for Ukraine

“Russia will not sign a declaration against itself”

In an interview with MK, Leonid Slutsky called the idea of ​​creating an international tribunal for Ukraine a political order from the collective West to demonize Russia. Earlier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the French Foreign Ministry announced the start of work on the creation of a tribunal, the purpose of which is to try the Russian leadership for “criminal aggression.”

– The statements of the representative of the French Foreign Ministry about the “start of work” on the creation of an international tribunal for Ukraine lie more in the political plane. There is no legitimate basis for creating a tribunal yet,” said Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs.

Threats to create an international tribunal against Russia have been heard from European politicians for more than a month. In addition to the French Foreign Ministry, Ursula von der Leyen also announced the start of EU work on the creation of such a court.

Slutsky is sure that it is possible to implement such an initiative only by stepping on the throat of international law.

– All the talk about some kind of justice in this case is nothing more than a tribute to the political order of the collective West to further demonize Russia and justify its own policy of double standards.

If an international tribunal is to be convened, then Ukrainian war criminals and their Washington patrons should be on its bench. The United States and its NATO allies since the Second World War have bombed the territory of more than 20 sovereign states, interfering with their order and sovereignty. This is what needs to be condemned. Then there will be much fewer reasons for the emergence of conflicts like the Ukrainian one, – Leonid Slutsky emphasized.

It is noteworthy that in her statement the head of the European Commission assured the Western public that the idea of ​​establishing a tribunal against Russia would allegedly find support in the UN.

Former UN Deputy Secretary General Sergei Ordzhonikidze is sure that there will be no such support.

– Western countries can create anything, even a prison. Any bodies created by them will be a kind of cabal or club of interests. From the standpoint of international law, such a tribunal would be completely illegitimate,” Sergey Ordzhonikidze commented on the idea of ​​European officials.

As the diplomat explained, in order to create an international judicial body, it is necessary to strictly comply with the UN procedures. A tribunal can be established only on the basis of a UN decision. It was in this order that the tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia were created. By the way, in both cases Russia voted for.

Now the situation is radically different: Russia will not vote against itself. It will not work to expel us from the UN either. The mechanism of self-defence of each member country is laid in the very foundation of the organization.

Everything is very wisely spelled out in the UN Charter. To exclude the state from the organization, it is necessary to adopt changes to the charter. To do this, the resolution of the General Assembly is first adopted by a qualified majority – two-thirds of the votes of the member countries. Then a conference is convened, which takes the appropriate decision to change the charter also by two-thirds of the votes. This decision must be ratified by all UN member states. This procedure was a wise decision by wise leaders. This is a defense mechanism, – explains Sergey Ordzhonikidze.

The idea of ​​the West to judge Russia for criminal aggression can hardly be considered viable either — it is precisely this “corpus delicti” that the ideologists of the creation of the tribunal are trying to impute to our country. As experts in international law explain, after the Second World War, the leaders of fascist Germany, members of the government of the Romanian dictator Antonescu and the military command of Japan were accused of criminal aggression. After the Nuremberg trials, there were no trials on such a charge in history. The tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia worked on other offenses – genocide and specific war crimes. After the creation of the UN, it is not so easy to accuse any state of aggression.

– The fact of the existence of aggression, according to the UN Charter, must be determined by the Security Council of the organization and enshrined in a declaration adopted by all members. Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, it will not sign a declaration against itself. So the words about aggression are political accusations, nothing more. The West proceeds from the fact that the center of international decision-making is located in Brussels or Washington. This is the inertia of Western-centric thinking. However, this does not correspond to the realities of today,” Sergey Ordzhonikidze concluded.