At this year’s Economic Forum, special attention was given to Ukraine. One of the important elements after the war will also be the issue of justice and bearing responsibility for war crimes. The panel was opened by moderator Inna Kurochkina, editor of the I News portal (Ichkeria News). She recalled the events of the early 1990s, when, on the one hand, there was talk of euphoria over the collapse of the Soviet Union and hopes placed on the democratization of post-Soviet states, and on the other hand, events such as the Russo-Chechen war and Russian interventions in Georgia occurred. Inna Kurochkina stressed that back in those days Dudayev and Gamtsurdia warned against Russia’s imperialist policies.
Oleg Dunda, a deputy to Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, was the first to speak in the discussion. In his view, the sanctions introduced against Russia after the attack on Ukraine should not be seen as punishment. If Russia had not pursued an imperialist policy, the crimes that took place in Bucha and Vinnitsa would not have happened. The West, in his view, did not react sufficiently to the collapse of the USSR and then to Russia’s aggression against Georgia in 2008. “We need to think about the future. So that these crimes do not happen again, Russia must be punished. The war must end with a victory for Ukraine.” – MP Dunda stressed. It is necessary, in his opinion, to create an ad hoc criminal tribunal. In the future, too, there will be a breakup of Russia into small states – either a bloody breakup or a breakup with the cooperation of the international community.
Akhmet Zakayev, Chairman of the Government of Ichkeria in Exile, former Minister of Culture in Dzhokhar Dudayev’s government in Chechnya and a brigadier general in the Russo-Chechen war, spoke next. He recalled that Chechnya ceased to exist in 1921 and became part of the Soviet empire. During the Russian-Chechen wars, the Russians murdered some 300,000 people, including some 42,000 children. According to Zakayev, the Russian empire should disappear from the world map. “Russia’s existence means that Russia will continue to commit crimes against the population,” Zakayev noted.
Andrius Tučkus, Chairman of the Lithuanian Freedom Movement, recalled that after World War II there was a trial with Nazi criminals, but not with Soviet ones. At the moment, he believes, it is necessary to take away Russia’s nuclear weapons.
Lachin Mamishov, a producer living in Switzerland, zoomed in on attempts to file a case against Russia at the International Criminal Court. This would set an important precedent for the crimes of Russian soldiers in Chechnya. A second proceeding, in his view, should be initiated against Russia for crimes in Ukraine. Mamishov stressed that Chechnya is under Russian occupation. He also quoted Dzhokhar Dudayev’s words that “if we consider Chechnya to be Russia’s internal affair, then one day Russia’s internal affair will become all of Europe.”