The NATO Parliamentary Assembly pledged on Monday to maintain “unwavering” support for Ukraine and appealed to the leaders of the Alliance to speed up the delivery of fighter aircraft and other military equipment Kyiv needs in its struggle against Russian aggression.
Photo: Speech by Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov during the NATO PA session / NATO PA website
This was reported by the official website of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
On May 22, at its session in Luxembourg, the NATO PA adopted a declaration containing the unanimous support of NATO parliamentarians for the international tribunal, and assistance to Ukraine before and after victory.
“We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said NATO PA President Joëlle Garriaud-Maylam. “Today, through its courageous resistance to Russian aggression, Ukraine is defending our common security, our values and the rules-based international order. It is the future of this international order that is at stake.”
“We must continue to support Ukraine,” NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said. “If Putin wins, it would be an immense tragedy for the heroic people of Ukraine, but it would also make Europe less secure, and it would send a message to other authoritarian leaders that they can achieve their goals by using force … this would make the whole world more vulnerable.”
Russia is a terrorist state that commits atrocious crimes
Presented by Polish lawmaker and NATO PA Vice-President Michal Szczerba, the declaration was adopted unanimously.
The declaration clearly states that “the Russian state under the current regime is a terrorist one”.
Also, the parliamentarians are clearly committed to a strategy to hold accountable the Russian regime, its co-aggressors in the Belarusian regime and all other perpetrators, including for the crime of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity and possible acts of genocide committed in Ukraine.
Accordingly, the parliamentarians expressed their welcome of the decision of the International Criminal Court to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin and emphasized once again that
“the forcible transfer of children from one group to another group with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group is an act of genocide in accordance with the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.”
It is important to note that among the calls for comprehensive support for Ukraine in Putin’s criminal war, the NATO PA called on the governments and parliaments of all members of the Alliance to take important diplomatic steps, including
- to explicitly recognize the Wagner group as a criminal and terrorist organization, and to firmly condemn its actions in Ukraine and other parts of the world;
- to expand massive, crippling and sustained sanctions for as long as it takes until Russia withdraws all of its troops from all of Ukraine’s territory within its internationally recognized borders;
- to continue to support the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia’s crime of aggression and support national and international courts in documenting and prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity and potential acts of genocide;
- to expel Russian diplomats engaged in hostile activities, including spreading hate speech and disinformation, fueling the conflict and destabilizing the situation in Ukraine.
As previously reported, the expulsion of Russian diplomats and agents of influence from European countries is an important step in strengthening internal security.
