Ukraine’s Nobel laureate wants Putin brought to justice

OSLO: The co-winner of this year´s Nobel Peace Prize, Ukraine´s Oleksandra Matviichuk, called on Friday for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be brought before an international tribunal.

Speaking to reporters in Oslo on the eve of the Nobel prize award ceremony, the human rights lawyer said she was confident Putin would be tried “sooner or later”. “We must establish an international tribunal and hold Putin, (Belarus President Alexander) Lukashenko and other war criminals accountable, not only for Ukrainians but for the other nations in the world”, she said.

Founded in 2007, the Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties (CCL) headed by Matviichuk documents war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine. “This war has a genocidal character,” she said in English. “If Ukraine stops its resistance, there will be no more of us.”

“So I have no doubt that sooner or later Putin will appear before an international court.” The CCL was in October awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with jailed Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski and the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, which Russia´s Supreme Court has ordered dissolved. The trio were honoured for their struggle for “human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine”, the Nobel committee said at the time.