Kyiv could be sold out over Kremlin war trials, warns expert

UKRAINE should take responsibility for any legal action against Russia because the West could “corrupt the process” for “cheap gas and oil”, a former international criminal prosecutor said.

Prof Sir Geoffrey Nice KC was the lead prosecutor against Slobodan Milosevic. the former president of Serbia, at the UN’s Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia between 1998 and 2006.

He has been visiting Kyiv in recent months to discuss how perpetrators of potential war crimes might be held to account.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, he warned that “there are real risks of it subcontracting out” any legal action to the international community, saying it may end up with Crimea and the Donbas being sacrificed for a peace deal in exchange “for cheap oil and gas” for the West.

“The risks are that the internationals will have interests of their own to serve, that may allow them to affect or even to corrupt the process and you’ve always got to be alive to that,” he said.

He said that foreign powers could pressure Ukraine into accepting “a negotiated settlement” that could compromise the Donbas and Crimea – Ukrainian regions invaded by Russia.

“There might easily be pressure to trade off justice.” Asked what for, he responded: “For cheap gas and oil.”

He also said an international legal process was likely to take much longer and be more expensive.

Karim Ahmad Khan KC, the British barrister who serves as International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor, launched an investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine in March. However, there has been no meaningful update since then.

Prof Sir Geoffrey said that it would better serve Ukraine’s interests if it were to hold Russia to account themselves. “There’s a risk that a bad actor will seek to achieve and may succeed in achieving a narrow measure of moral equivalence,” he said.

Much of Sir Geoffrey’s work since his prosecution of Milosevic has been connected to cases before the ICC.