Recently, an online conference was held with the participation of Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Father Patrick Debois, President of Yahad In Unum, and representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to investigate Russia’s war crimes during the Ukrainian invasion.
On behalf of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Andriy Yermak thanked the representatives of Yahad In Unum for their efforts to record the crimes of the Russian occupiers in Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak stressed that criminals who invaded his country must be punished, and this is fundamentally important not only for Ukraine but for the whole world. After all, other potential aggressors must realize that evil always loses, and criminals are held accountable, according to the press service of the President’s Office.
“In the process of this work, your experience and your efforts to gather evidence and testimony are very useful for Ukraine. We will also find the experience of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which hunted Nazis around the world, very useful. And it is extremely important for Ukraine to involve this organization in the work to bring Russian war criminals to justice,” said the head of the President’s Office.
Andriy Yermak noted that today it is necessary to document every crime committed by the Russian occupiers in Ukraine and to draw the attention of as many representatives of the international community as possible.
The participants in the meeting stressed that humanity should forever remember the terrible pages of the Babyn Yar tragedy, which took thousands of lives. However, today the Russian aggressor, who neglects not only the norms of international law but also the basics of morality, continues to exterminate Ukrainians.
Memo. For 20 years, the French organization Yahad In Unum has been researching and documenting the genocide of Jews, Roma, and other mass crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II. In particular, the organization studied the tragedy of Babyn Yar in Kyiv. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Father Patrick Debois, together with Yahad In Unum, is implementing an initiative entitled “The Russian War Crimes Project: Gathering Evidence.” It is implemented in collaboration with the non-governmental organization Holocaust Memorial Center “Babyn Yar,” in which Father Patrick Debois is chairman of the Academic Council. The center ensures all organizational work on finding witnesses and documenting evidence in Ukraine. Currently, data have been collected on more than 200,000 potential crime scenes committed by Russian forces.
