On March 27, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Mariana Betsa held a meeting with Maria Telalian, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).  

Mariana Betsa expressed her gratitude for the ODIHR’s work aimed at monitoring and documenting violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the course of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she emphasized the importance of the ongoing activities related to the preparation of the ODIHR’s semi-annual Interim Reports on documenting Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. This type of the ODIHR’s work serves as an important contribution to international efforts to ensure that the aggressor state is held to account. 

The Deputy Minister underlined that, given Russia’s consistent and intensified terror against Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, international human rights institutions must only reinforce their focus on Russia’s criminal actions in Ukraine in order to properly document them and consolidate the international politico-diplomatic pressure on the aggressor.

“Against the backdrop of the most severe winter in decades, the aggressor state has deliberately intensified attacks on Ukraine’s energy and civilian infrastructure in an attempt to destroy the civilian population. These actions demonstrate Russia’s true – genocidal - intentions towards  Ukraine and require proper documentation, investigation and accountability. In this regard, we count on further close cooperation and support of the ODIHR as a recognized human rights institution”, stressed Mariana Betsa.

The Deputy Minister also called on the ODIHR to pay priority attention to Russia’s criminal actions in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, which have been turned by the occupiers into areas of lawlessness, repression and complete impunity.

In this context, particular attention should be paid to the issues of the deportation, militarization and indoctrination of Ukrainian children by the aggressor state as well as Russia’s inhumane treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and arbitrarily detained civilians.