Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is as complicit in crimes of aggression against Ukraine as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is, the European Parliament asserted in a resolution adopted on Sept. 13.
The resolution, based on a report by MEP Petras Austrevičius from Lithuania, was adopted during a plenary session in Strasbourg by an overwhelming majority of votes.
“The illegitimate Lukashenka regime is actively supporting and has become fully complicit in Russia’s unjustified war of aggression and war crimes against Ukraine,” the document reads.
“The special international tribunal on the crime of aggression perpetrated by Russia against Ukraine must have jurisdiction to investigate not only Putin and the Russian political and military leadership, but also the Belarusian leadership.”
The resolution recalls the full list of Belarusian regime's crimes, beginning with the incitement of hatred and participation in Russian anti-Ukrainian propaganda, to direct support for the Russian army, including granting permission to attack Ukraine from Belarusian territory and directly supplying ammunition and military equipment.
Consequently, EU Member States are advised to seek legal ways to seize the financial assets of the Belarusian leadership and relevant enterprises in order to potentially direct them to the restoration of Ukraine. The EP urges mirror sanctions against Belarus, similar to those imposed by the EU against Russia over its aggression against Ukraine.
A separate section of the resolution deals with the forcible deportation of over 2,150 children from Ukraine to Belarus, who have been taken there from temporarily occupied territories by Russian troops. The EP supports the investigation by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine into the role Belarus plays in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children, bringing the Belarusian dictator to account in the ICC for these crimes, as has been done against the Russian leadership.
“The European Parliament considers Lukashenka as responsible for these war crimes as Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova and therefore calls on the ICC to consider issuing a similar international warrant for Lukashenka’s arrest,” the paragraph says.
Source: The New Voice of Ukraine, Staff, September 3, 2023
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