PRESS RELEASE : Attorney General visits Ukraine to drive accountability [September 2024]
The press release issued by the Attorney General’s Office on 12 September 2024.
The Attorney General Lord Hermer KC visited Kyiv, Bucha and Irpin to drive forward accountability for Ukraine.
Speaking alongside President Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin and ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, the Attorney General opened the United for Justice Conference.
The Attorney General said:
The UK supports Ukraine’s fight for freedom and its fight for justice. Russia must be accountable both for specific atrocities and its act of aggression. From the battlefield to the courtroom, the UK stands with Ukraine.
The conference was held in an underground car park in central Kyiv for safety, a daily reminder of the toll of war.
At Bucha’s cathedral, the Attorney General heard of the brutal murders and executions of ordinary people as they cycled to work, walked to the shop or sought to flee Russia’s occupation in March 2022.
Bucha was a place of terror two and a half years ago. Though homes have been rapidly reconstructed, wounds remain. Father Andriy, the Archpriest of the Cathedral, told from his experience of the importance of international rule of law and accountability, to provide justice for the people of Bucha and prevent further atrocities.
The Attorney General also stopped at the Romanivika Bridge, Irpin, blown up in 2022 to stop the Russian advance to Kyiv, but now a commuter route from the city to its suburbs.
There he heard about the part-UK funded Mobile Justice Units which support victims, including of conflict related sexual violence, across Ukraine.
The Attorney General also held detailed discussions with Prosecutor General Kostin on the work of his Office to prosecute the 135,000 incidents of alleged war crimes in real-time, as well as training and other support the UK is providing to help prosecutors.
