Leaders from across the continent were heading toward Iceland early Tuesday for a rare summit of the 46-nation Council of Europe that will once more step up support for member state Ukraine and condemn expelled Russia for inflicting war on its neighbour.
And after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stocked up on promises of military hardware throughout a long weekend of diplomatic hobnobbing with the continent’s major leaders, the two-day summit of Europe’s main human rights body will be centring on providing legal and judicial means to go after the Kremlin.
By Wednesday’s conclusion, leaders at the summit want to have the outlines of a system in place that will set up a register of all the damage already caused by Russian forces, so Moscow can be held liable for compensation to the victims later. They are hoping that the United States, which has observer status at the summit, will also back that initiative.
“The register is just one of a number of international initiatives set up to ensure accountability for the crimes inflicted in Ukraine,” said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The Council also wants to make sure that Russia can be held accountable for what it sees as a plethora of crimes committed during the invasion.
“I will very strongly support the creation of a dedicated tribunal to bring Russia’s crime of aggression to trial,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Plans for such a court in The Hague have yet to bear fruit.
In Kyiv, the words of support were no match for Moscow’s military might, as Russia launched an intense air attack on the capital using a combination of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.