This is the EU’s Kaja Kallas calling for EU countries to rally behind the ‘special tribunal’ to ‘try’ Putin, and other senior Russian figures for the crime of aggression.
We are also calling on other member states, countries, participants to fund it so that the work can really start full-scale because without accountability there is no just and lasting peace [1]
There has to be a ‘special tribunal’ because the ICC hasn’t charged Putin with this crime, just the rather theatrical kidnapping charge. (I had thought that it lay outside of the scope of the ICC to prosecute the crime of aggression, that is invading another country, but after having looked into it, it seems that a change to the ICC’s terms of reference may mean that they can, in fact, prosecute this crime. To be honest; I am not sure. Either way, they haven’t. Hence the ‘special tribunal’.
To get the obvious points out of the way first. The specific crime is violating the UN Charter, which only allows military action as a defense. In his address on the day the special operation was launched Putin used the justification that the action was legal under the UN Charter. It was a preemptive act of self-defence. This is precisely the same justification which the allies used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion. If Putin should be charged with this crime then so should the architects of the Iraq war. In terms of a possible defence, using the preemptive argument, then Putin is on much stronger ground. There is absolutely concrete evidence which could be cited by his legal team; CIA bases in Ukraine being used against Russia, US involvement in the Maidan coup, the 2021 US Ukraine partnership agreement in which Ukraine joining NATO was reaffirmed and the specific intention to take back Crimea, was declared. A massive armements campaign. Signs that Kiev was getting ready to move from implementation of Minsk to active repudiation, and so on. Contrast this with the total lack of ‘WMD’, the main reason for the invasion, in Iraq, which fact, was pretty much known in advance anyway. [2] Then, of course, the equally illegal and terroristic NATO campaign on Serbia at the end of the 90s. And, how about a tribunal for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West bank, enabled by the West – characterised as such by multiple NGOs, and the UN? The EU can’t even bring themselves to suspend a preferential trade agreement with Israel. The whole point about the law, is that it applies to everyone equally. Otherwise, it is just a sort of victor’s circus. Reminiscent, ironically enough, of Stalin’s show trials.
But, that is the obvious point. Totally absurd ‘double-standards’ is nothing new. The real folly of this is how it creates eternal enmity with Russia. They talk about a “durable peace”, but, quite obviously Russia is not going to consider itself at peace with the EU, and I would doubt, even sign anything, while its leadership is “on trial” somewhere. They, the mad people at the top of the EU, appear to be dreaming of something a bit like the Nuremberg trials. But, that was only possible because of the total defeat of Nazi Germany. But, they are losing the war. Their dreams do not match well with reality.
Meanwhile, the head of Germany’s intelligence service says:
We are already under fire today … The means Moscow uses are well known: attempted manipulation of elections and public opinion, propaganda, provocations, disinformation, espionage, sabotage, airspace violations by drones and fighter jets, contract killings, persecution of opposition figures living abroad. [1]
This too is quite odd. Barring, possibly, contract killings, all of those are behaviours which the West engages in. In fact, Scott Ritter’s book, cited above, [2], describes an MI6 programme to manipulate public opinion in the lead up to the Iraq war. Then there is the UK’s intelligence service Integrity Initiative, a programme to promote Western viewpoints in the media, not to mention the whole racket of government and military sector funding think tanks to appear as “independent experts” in the media, and thus manipulate public opinion. Sabotage; think the US-Israeli programme of sabotage against Iran. Persecution of political enemies; recall Assange. Espionage? And we don’t spy on Russia? Come on, Mr Jaeger. Or, again, in as much of these claims have substance, and Russian jets grazing Estonian airspace at a narrow point in the Gulf of Finland, doesn’t count, what do they expect? Western munitions have been killing Russians in Ukraine and Russia for 3 years now. On the specific case of the jets penetrating Estonian airspace, the way that has been blown out of proportion makes it more a case of Western misinformation than a Russian provocation. Mr Jaeger is supposed to work in intelligence. Shouldn’t he be analyzing the whole situation, not following this absurdist one-sided narrative by which the West can do what it likes, break any rules, kill anyone it pleases, but, if anyone else does that it is “unprovoked aggression” and worthy of a ‘special tribunal’ to try it? This really isn’t very intelligent. Nor will it lead to peace.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/14/ukraine-war-briefing-crimea-oil-refinery-burns-as-russia-feels-effects-on-fuel-supply
- War on Iraq. Scott Ritter and William Rivers Pitt. Allen and Unwin 2002.