<h6>Eduardo González</h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares welcomed this Thursday the agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe to create the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.</strong></h4> “The signing of the agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe to create the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine is great news,” Albares wrote on social media. “Spain supports all efforts to promote accountability and combat impunity,” he added. “This Tribunal, and the Register of Damages created within the Council of Europe, are essential for justice to be done and for international law to prevail in Ukraine, Europe, and the world,” he concluded. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the agreement Wednesday evening to create the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. The new tribunal will be mandated to prosecute senior Russian leaders for the crime of “aggression” (specifically, the decision to use armed force against another state), in violation of the United Nations Charter. After signing the agreement, Zelensky thanked the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for the “true leadership” shown by that institution against Russian aggression. “It was here, in this Assembly, that the first call for such a tribunal was made,” he recalled. “The idea was born here, and now it is gaining real support from partner countries in Europe and the rest of the world,” he continued. “Strong political and legal cooperation will be required to ensure that all Russian war criminals, including (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, are brought to justice. This is the path we must take, leading to real charges and verdicts,” he concluded. “The aggressor must lose, we are working on that,” Zelensky asserted. “But justice also matters; it must work, so that war criminals have nowhere to hide, neither in Europe nor anywhere else,” and so that “a legal principle is established: aggression must not be rewarded,” declared the Ukrainian president. On <a href="https://thediplomatinspain.com/en/2025/05/10/albares-and-his-european-counterparts-support-the-special-tribunal-to-judge-russian-aggression-in-ukraine/">May 9, the foreign ministers of more than 30 countries</a> signed a declaration in Lviv, Ukraine, in support of the creation of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Among the signatories were José Manuel Albares himself and his European Union counterparts. The tribunal will be located in The Hague and will have the backing of the Council of Europe, which was responsible for defining its legal framework and discussing its implementation. The drafting of the legal instruments necessary to establish the Tribunal has been carried out by the Ukrainian authorities, the Council of Europe, and the European Union, with the support of high-level legal experts from a “core group” of some 40 states. Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in April 2022 as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.
