Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, speaking at a ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council marking 1,000 days of resistance against Russian aggression, called for the creation of new international mechanisms to hold Russia accountable for its war and humanitarian crimes. Highlighting the scale of atrocities committed by Russia, Sybiha emphasized that existing legal frameworks are insufficient to address the ongoing violations.

“The list of Russian atrocities committed in Ukraine proves that the current international tools are not working. We need new mechanisms to ensure accountability for the crime of aggression and all subsequent crimes. If this requires setting a precedent, let’s set a precedent,” he declared.

He called on the US Congress to adopt legislation recognizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide against the Ukrainian people. “There can be no alternative to justice. Russia must answer for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and all the atrocities that followed, including the crime of genocide,” Sybiha declared, according to Radio Liberty’s report. 

The Foreign Minister’s comments come amid Ukraine’s broader push for international recognition of Russia’s crimes as genocide. This includes efforts to highlight how Moscow’s actions violate the Genocide Convention, which prohibits acts committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Sybiha stressed that some of the war’s most horrific consequences are crimes against children. “The forcible deportation of at least 20,000 Ukrainian children might be the largest state-run children kidnapping operation in history,” Sybiha said, noting that these actions violate international conventions, including the Genocide Convention and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These children face forced russification, citizenship changes, and separation from their families.

The Foreign Minister rejected compromises such as “land for peace,” emphasizing that such solutions would leave millions of Ukrainians in occupied territories under the threat of torture and repression. “Ukrainian people are paying the highest price for this war. But the cost of appeasement will be even higher,” he warned. “We need real peace, not peace at any cost.”

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