No need for Ukraine tribunal, but culprits should be brought to account — Lavrov

LAKE SELIGER (Tver Region), August 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s top diplomat said Wednesday there is no need for an international tribunal on Ukraine but added that those guilty should be brought to account.

“After the war in Yugoslavia, a special tribunal was established; a tribunal for Rwanda has also been established, and they work. But it’s counterproductive to create tribunals after each conflict,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the Seliger-2014 all-Russian youth forum in the Tver Region northwest of Moscow.

“There are enough mechanisms that can and should be employed. But justice should prevail and the culprits brought to trial,” Lavrov said.

Troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the southeastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are involved in fierce clashes as the Ukrainian armed forces are conducting a military operation to regain control over the breakaway territories, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums and now call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics.

During the military operation, conducted since mid-April, Kiev has used armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in it. Many buildings have been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee Ukraine’s embattled southeast.