Students set up Ukrainian war crimes witness network
Three UvA students helped set up the Ukrainian Legal Network last June to help Ukrainian refugees become familiar with the Dutch legal system. Above all, they hope to collect testimonies about war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ukraine war and other conflicts. “There are dozens of war criminals living in Europe.”
Ukrainian Erika Skyba seeks eyewitness accounts to address the destruction, murders, and rapes that Russians inflicted on her people. Frederiek de Vlaming, director of The Nuhanovic Foundation, put out a call six months ago seeking a law student to help set up a legal network for Ukrainians. Skyba did not hesitate. “I was the only Ukrainian in my master's degree program in international criminal law in any case.” Along with a few UvA students, legal experts and human rights activists, she helped set up the Ukraine Legal Network, which serves as a liaison between Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands and the Dutch and international legal system.
Raghav Sarma, co-founder of the Ukrainian Legal Network, explains how the project developed. “In 2011, the Nuhanovic Foundation fund set up the Syrian Legal Network. I then became involved in the Yezidi Legal Network. Both responded to the need to provide legal support to refugees, to help lawyers from other countries in the Netherlands and to ensure documentation of international and war crimes. When the war began in Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees sought help, expanding our specialties and applying our expertise to the conflict made sense.’
Attacks
Other wars do not hinder the Ukrainian efforts in this regards, Skyba argues. ‘Conflicts as the Israel-Palestine war are often similar to our situation.’ But ‘of course we are also ready to provide aid to Israelian and Palestinian victims,’ Sarma adds. ‘And Russian refugees?’ Sarma: ‘Hmm, that’s a difficult question, considering the status of Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands. I’ll skip that one for now.’
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Skyba focuses mainly on engaging with the Ukrainian community in the Netherlands, building trust and establishing contacts. “At first, I didn't actually have any Ukrainian friends here. But now I talk to them daily and organize events, and slowly we are gaining the trust of the victims. We even arranged a visit to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to interact with the staff there. But unfortunately the court had to postpone as there had been a, possibly Russian, hacking attack on their email servers and they could not host us at the time.”
Tribunals are coming
Skyba runs into other problems as well. “The people I talk to would like to give their testimonies of war crimes today. We Ukrainians are ready. But to do that, I need help from prosecutors, investigators and experts on psychological services to help with their statements. After all, I cannot single-handedly support people with the traumatic experiences they have to tell. But sometimes the Dutch culture is more focused on doing things accurately and carefully. Ukrainians want action right away; we are fighters.’
On February 24th, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine from Crimea, Belarus, and western Russia. Since then, the Russian military has committed multiple war crimes such as extrajudicial killings of civilians, systematic torture, and unlawful shelling of civilian targets, according to a Friday supplement to a U.N. report.
More than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees are now registered in the Netherlands. After a new Russian offensive and the delivery of additional weapons from the United States to Ukraine, it does not look like they will be able to return home soon.
However, she is sure that any tribunal, made possible partly through Ukraine Legal Network’s witness testimonies and evidence gathering, will be a success. “Even though we won't be able to get Putin, he didn't carry out the torture and rapes all by himself, either. There might still be dozens of Russian war criminals living in European countries. We are going to bring Russians to a tribunal. That’s non-negotiable.’’
