U.S. Pledges To Hold Russian War Criminals Accountable

Washington on Monday reiterated its pledge to help prosecute Russian war crimes saying that those responsible for such crimes in Ukraine will have no place to hide, TURAN's U.S. correspondent reports.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland met with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin in Washington to discuss joint efforts. The two last met during Garland’s surprise trip to Lviv last month.

“Russian war criminals who set foot in our country should expect to find themselves before U.S. courts of law,” Garland told reporters in a joint press conference on Monday.

According to him, the U.S. will send a legal representative to work as a legal advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, as well as a prosecutor to the Hague, another measure to hold Russia accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine.

“We have a very long memory," Garland said when asked about a timeline for prosecuting Russian war criminals. "... As I know that Ukraine does as well, and these things tend to not work out very well for the people who commit these crimes and are prosecuted,” he added.

Kostin, in his turn, underscored that Washington and Kyiv "are united... to make all perpetrators accountable for all war crimes committed on Ukrainian soil against Ukraine and against Ukrainians.”

Alex Raufoglu