“We are really in the pure definition of the war crime”, testifies a European commissioner on the spot

Russia launched 75 missiles at Ukraine on Monday (October 10th), according to the Ukrainian military. “We are really in the pure definition of a war crime” because the Russian strikes on kyiv are aimed “purely and simply civilian objectives”, testifies the European Commissioner Didier Reynders who has been in the Ukrainian capital since Sunday. He carries out a mission on the follow-up of war crimes in Ukraine since the beginning of the war.

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“Which is totally unacceptable, continues Didier Reynders, it is really this way of systematically attacking civilian populations. We see it by visiting the sites that have already been hit in the last few months and by seeing what is happening today where bombs, missiles are falling all over the territory indiscriminately”.

“It’s very difficult to imagine what the next situation could be,” analyzes the Belgian, who was sheltered this Monday morning in the garage of the hotel where he lives, with all his team and the staff of the establishment. “We have seen in recent weeks very strong Ukrainian advances on the ground and we see that this attack on the bridge in Crimea [samedi 8 octobre] leads to a gradual reaction in declarations first and then in very important strikes.”

Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for Justice, assures that he is doing everything possible to ensure that war crimes are condemned: “We have done everything to put all possible procedures, in Ukraine, in 14 Member States, before the International Criminal Court, before the European Court of Human Rights, the objective is not to leave anyone unpunished. We know that there are already convictions of a certain number of soldiers, there are cases which will arrive on the table of the International Criminal Court following investigations, but we will continue. stop this step, which we owe to the Ukrainian victims.”