NATO PA: “United and determined to support Ukraine”

The session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly was held in Luxembourg from May 19 to 22 —
“United and determined to support Ukraine”

According to the results of the session, the delegates adopted two declarations. And one of them (Declaration 482) is completely devoted to Ukraine. We tell you what it contains and what it does not contain.

Let’s start with the victorious statements about the “unanimous recognition” of the Russian Federation’s genocide against Ukraine.

Well, not really. Although the declaration approves the arrest warrant, it maintains a distance from directly recognizing the actions of the Russian Federation as genocide. Terms such as “possible acts of genocide” and “Putin allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of the population” are used.

An abstract reference to the fact that the deportation of children really constitutes genocide — also does not indicate recognition. In the April PACE resolution, for example, there were somewhat stronger wording (“the crime of genocide has reared its head” and a call to the ISS to consider the possibility of opening an investigation into genocide. And there are reasons for this: a little over a year ago, the Dead Lawyers Society joined the project to prove the presence of signs of genocide in the actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. Then our appeal to prevent the Russian genocide was signed by more than 2,300 people. The report by the New Lines Institute is also worth noting. on the same topic.

Instead, the real innovation of the declaration is the mention of “the ideology and practices of ruscism.”

For the first time, this term was used in an international legal document, which, although far from changing the game, is at least worthy of attention. The roots of this amendment from our delegation can be traced to the Resolution on ruscism, which the Verkhovna Rada adopted at the beginning of May.

Among other important points — a call to provide aircraft, anti-aircraft defense, and tanks, to recognize PMC “Wagner” as a criminal and terrorist organization, to consider the use of frozen assets in order for Russia to pay compensation for damage (not the strongest wording, by the way), to work on a special tribunal on the crime of aggression, agree on the next steps that will bring Ukraine closer to NATO.

In view of other news that has been heard more and more recently, the point that the NATO PA calls for the Vilnius summit to emphasize the need for strong security guarantees for Ukraine before NATO membership deserves special attention. We can expect this topic to receive a lot of attention during the July summit.

Well, consider now that you also attended the NATO session.

✍️ Erik Kucherenko