Polyansky: the UN General Assembly does not have the authority to create a special tribunal against Russia

MOSCOW, January 14 – RIA Novosti. The UN General Assembly does not have the authority to create a special tribunal against Russia, such initiatives are legally null and void, said Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the world organization.

According to him, this idea is popular in the West and is being exploited for populist and political purposes. Polyansky noted that there was no practical content in that idea, except to make serious people laugh and shrug their shoulders. “This is still a very vague and more political than legal initiative,” he said.

Earlier, First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzhaparova said that Ukraine would submit for discussion this year a draft resolution of the UN General Assembly on the establishment of a special tribunal against Russia. In February, Kyiv will submit a draft resolution in support of Volodymyr Zelensky’s “peace plan” to a vote in the General Assembly.

Earlier, the European Commission came up with an initiative to create a special international court for Ukraine under the auspices of the UN. Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Geneva headquarters, told RIA Novosti that the creation of a mechanism under the auspices of the UN requires the sanction of the UN Security Council, without which the proposed EU “tribunal on Ukraine” is impossible. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia categorically rejects Kyiv’s accusations of war crimes on the territory of Ukraine.