U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday to discuss a “historic” agreement to hold war criminals accountable.
“Just now, the United States signed an historic agreement with Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, and Romania that will strengthen our efforts to hold Russian war criminals accountable,” he said, according to a speech provided by the Department of Justice.
Russia began its invasion of Ukraine a little more than a year ago. According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, more than 8,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine due to the invasion, including hundreds of children.
Garland – who has family that were killed in the Holocaust – said that Russian forces have been “committing atrocities at the largest scale in any armed conflict since the second World War,” and that “the perpetrators of those crimes will not get away with them.”
He quoted late Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who said “we must bear witness,” and added that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office “have risked their lives to bear witness,” since the conflict.
According to the attorney general, the Ukrainian prosecutors have “meticulously collected and catalogued evidence from the rubble of blast sites,” that include hospitals, civilian residences and schools. In doing this work, they have exhumed mass graves and studied the bones of victims.
Additionally, Garland said they have “documented the Russian regime’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children and its use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.”
While the prosecutors have already opened investigations, identified suspects and started prosecutions, Garland said the effort to hold Russia accountable is only just beginning. He said the agreement between the U.S., Ukraine and other partners will help the countries share information and build cases against war criminals.
“In addition to strengthening our international partnerships, the United States is working more closely than ever with our Ukrainian partners in our investigations of Russian war crimes,” Garland said. These efforts include working with Ukraine to develop a secure electronic case management and analysis system.
Previously, the U.S. Justice Department and the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office have worked together to prove atrocity crimes in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. The Department’s Office of Special Investigations has brought more than 130 cases against perpetrators of Nazi crimes.
Actions related to the current situation in Ukraine include the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture and Garland’s authorization of the first-ever transfer of seized assets to the U.S. State Department to support the rebuilding of Ukraine.
“What is happening here in Ukraine has significantly re-shaped the way the United States approaches war crimes accountability,” said Garland. “Until recently, our jurisdiction over war crimes was limited to cases in which a U.S.
national was a victim or perpetrator. But earlier this year – in the wake of Russia’s campaign of brutality – Congress enacted a change in the law that will allow the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute alleged war criminals from anywhere in the world who are found in the United States. And we intend to do so.”
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